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Adrian Peterson Fumbling Stats

ubelmann February 3, 2010, at 5:51 pm One LTE

An interesting look at the cost of fumbles.

Landon Donovan to Everton

ubelmann December 10, 2009, at 12:34 pm 7 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) ,

Seems like a good move. If he doesn't get any playing time (like in Germany), then he'll be back in time for the MLS season to start. If he does get playing time, it should be good for him, too. Everton is having enough trouble these days that he should have a fair shot to make an impact.

My Favorite One-Paragraph Brett Favre Summary To Date

ubelmann December 9, 2009, at 8:48 pm 2 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) ,

From Joe Posnanski:

It’s true: There has not been a player in recent American sports — not even Derek Jeter — who has been as mythologized as Brett Favre. Favre is a gunslinger*, of course, and he’s like a kid out there, yes, a kid gunslinger, or more precisely a gunslinging kid sketching out plays in the dirt with a stick, oh yes, he’s a gamer too, a gamer who loves to play the game, a player who plays for the love the game, a gamer who games for the play of his love, no, wait, no, point is is he loves to play, and plays to love, and he’s just a gamer gunslinger sketching plays in the dirt with a stick, but remember he’s also a kid, always. To sum up: He’s a gamer who happens to love the gunslinging he can do as kid who loves the game.

Mauer and Fastballs

ubelmann December 4, 2009, at 2:04 pm One LTE - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) ,

Just a quick thought after reading this at fangraphs.

If I'm a pitcher, and I see how Mauer stays back on the ball so much, would I want to throw him an off-speed pitch that gives him time to come around on my pitch? Mauer's career numbers show that he doesn't hit particularly well against off-speed pitches, so maybe there's nothing to this, but maybe he is seeing off-speed pitches from pitchers who are disproportionately confident in not hanging their breaking pitches.

Also, I'd guess that Mauer is ahead in the count a lot, forcing pitchers with sub-par control to throw him a lot of fastballs.

Yearly Elias Gripe

ubelmann November 10, 2009, at 1:34 am Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired

I don't really have anything to add to this rundown of everyone's flawed ratings system.

Got Love the Yankees

SBG October 9, 2009, at 3:34 pm 9 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

Must read.

Barry Bonds Pulled From Lake

brianS September 16, 2009, at 7:09 pm Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired

The Barry Bonds of Trout, that is. Heh.

On September 5, Saskatchewan fisherman Sean Konrad caught a 48-pound, world-record rainbow trout. The fish came from Lake Diefenbaker, where trout genetically engineered to grow extra-big escaped from a fish farm nine years ago.

The previous world record was held by Sean’s twin brother Adam, who pulled a 43-pound, 10-ounce rainbow trout from Lake Diefenbaker in 2007. That catch sparked online debate over the legitimacy of Lake Diefenbaker’s farm-born, genetically-engineered rainbows. Technically known as triploids, they’re designed with three sets of chromosomes, making them sterile and channeling energies normally spent reproducing towards growth.

In 2007, on a message board of the International Game Fish Association, the angling world’s record- and ethics-keeping body, some fishermen argued that triploids were unnatural, as divorced from the sport’s history as Barry Bonds’ home runs were from Hank Aaron’s.

Undocumented Alien Farm Workers Flood SoDak

brianS September 15, 2009, at 10:54 pm 4 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

and they are hoppin' mad.

"All of a sudden, they just exploded," Farmer and Rancher Steve Smeenk said. "I've killed millions and millions of them, but I haven't killed enough to make a dent. There's billions and billions of them out there."

Global Warming Crisis

brianS September 15, 2009, at 1:28 pm 3 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) ,

As one of my academic, beer-drinking buddies emailed me, "Ok, NOW I care."

Global Warming is impacting beer production.

In a paper recently published in the Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, a team led by climatologist Martin Mozny of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute has found that the quality of Saaz hops -- a delicate variety of hop used to make pilsner lager -- has been decreasing in recent years. Why? It would appear the continuing rise of air temperature in the Czech Republic (where the crops are located) is the culprit.

That Was Real Ballsy of Griffey

socaltwinsfan September 2, 2009, at 11:15 pm 2 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

The following is from Wednesday's Mariners game:

The healthier Mariners celebrated getting nine-time All-Star Ichiro Suzuki back for the first time in nine games, and Gold Glove third baseman Adrian Beltre for the first time in three weeks.

When Beltre batted for the first time, after a hard ground ball severely bruised his testicle last month, the stadium public address system had a replacement for Beltre's usual walk-up music: the theme from "The Nutcracker."

Laughter filled the park.

Beltre can thank Ken Griffey Jr. for that. The team crackup had that idea for days, anticipating Beltre's return. Beltre went 0 for 4 with two long fly outs.

Classic.

White Flag Trade II

socaltwinsfan September 1, 2009, at 12:00 am 29 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

David Watts already pointed this out inthe  Cup of Coffee, but I figured this deserved its own post. White Sox wave white flag by trading Jim Thome to the Dodgers. They also traded Jose Contreras, but I can't see how that makes them any worse, and I don't see how the Rockies think Contreras will make them better.

The Sox could only get an infielder with a .758 OPS playing in the Cal League, probably the best offensive league in pro baseball, for Thome.

This really helps the Twins considering how he's destroyed them over the years regardless of how he's swinging and the Twins still have another series in Chicago at the end of September.

The Twins need to put this team away in the next two games so they can focus on catching the Tigers. I'm getting pennant fever! How about you?

Your Day Could Have Been Worse

ubelmann August 13, 2009, at 10:49 pm Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired ,

Yesterday in the Mariners' 14-inning win over the White Sox, Adrian Beltre tore his testicle in the 9th inning and finished the game out, scoring the winning run. This more or less sums it up:

Told that some were suggesting he was brave for staying in the game, [Beltre] quipped:

"I don't know about brave. Maybe stupid.''

Mainly stupid for not wearing a cup, but stupid or not, Beltre is hands down one of the most entertaining players in the game.

Wendelstadt, you’re an idiot

socaltwinsfan August 8, 2009, at 12:23 am 7 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

The Twins really played poorly, so it's difficult to muster up much anger about the numerous bad calls going against the Twins last night. At least it was until I saw this quote from home-plate umpire Hunter Wendelstadt in Joe C's game story on the STrib Web site

"Best-case scenario, the only questionable call of whole night that he might have is whether the fan might have touched the foul ball down the line, which we couldn't see on the tape," Wendelstedt said. "Everything else, we were 100 percent. And then when I get my ball-and-strike disk, I'll bet I'm 97-99 percent, and we'll look at that tomorrow."

So, Hunter, you admit it was a foul ball? That's probably why you didn't call interference, then, because it was a foul ball and therefore already dead? Hmm??

I don't know what replays he was looking at, but the ones I saw 30 seconds after it happened showed dirt kicking up several inches on the foul side of the line and FSN had a freeze frame of Mauer tagging Guillen before his foot was touching the plate. But, hey, at least you got to throw Gardy out of the game again. That had to be gratifying.

Mauer’s batting average over 54- and 162-game periods

ubelmann August 1, 2009, at 8:00 am 4 LTEs - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired) ,

I should check my bb-ref rss feed more often. This is a little old, but I really like the chart in this July 9th, baseball-reference stat-of-the-day post. Now, as noted in the post, Mauer doesn't need to hit .400 for 162 games, but over his previous best 115-game stretch, he hit .368.

I don't think this is anything terribly surprising to anyone, but I liked the graph a lot. In his career, the worst Mauer has hit over a 54-game period was ~.260, which is usually about a league average batting average.

Twins close to trade?

socaltwinsfan July 31, 2009, at 12:56 am One LTE - (Sorry, but the time to add LTEs has expired)

Twins closer to deal for Cabrera? Like any trade rumor involving the Twins, I'll believe it when I see it. I doubt Cabrera would be an actual upgrade, but making a move that is a perceived upgrade by teammates and the average fan can provide a psychological boost and momentum can be a powerful thing over a couple months (see 2003, 2006). And although I seriously doubt Mauer will play for anyone other than the Twins no matter what happens, I do like the idea of Mauer being encouraged by a move by the front office. This all is coming under the assumption the Twins aren't dumb enough to trade away Danny Valencia, Aaron Hicks, or Anthony Slama, no matter what Shecky says.

 
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