Genuflect at the Altar of Small Sample Size

Today, the Twins and White Sox will gather to play a 163rd game - a one-game playoff for the entirety of the AL Central, the baseball equivalent of the Golden Goal but minus the open racism and flopping and Brazilian dudes with one name and Hope Solo is a lesbian too. Sorry, got a little out of control on the soccer analogy. Won't happen again.

The White Sox won the coin flip (even though Minnesota won the season series), so the game is at US Cellular - undoubtedly, this is an advantage for the White Sox, as both teams show larger-than-average home/road splits (likely because the White Sox can't do anything except hit homers, and the Twins play in a fucking putt-putt course with a baggy on top). Indeed, AccuScore lists the White Sox at a 62% predicted winning percentage, white BP lists the Sox as a 57/43 favorite. Either way you slice it, it's likely that a coin flip made the White Sox a 3:2 favorite in this game. Seems pretty fair, in a Shawshank sort of way.

The most interesting part, at least for me (NOTE: I'm stupid), is how this is explained by the media. The ESPN article above completely ignores everything we know about small-sample historical stats between a specific batter and pitcher - namely, that they aren't predictive over the entirety of MLB. So when ESPN tells us that Mauer and Morneau have shitrocked John Danks (hitting .667 in 12 ABs and .438 in 16 ABs, respectively), that seems pretty impressive . . . except for the fact that it is completely and wholly irrelevant beyond the player himself 'feeling good' entering today.

Additionally, Danks has had a great year . . . except for against the Twins at Chicago. His ERA on the year sits at 3.47, an ERA+ of 132 - but in four starts in Chicago against the Twins, his ERA is 7.45. Sounds pretty rough, right? Well, it's not - in three starts against Tampa (a markedly better team than the Twins), Danks has an ERA of 1.86 and a K/BB ratio of 5.25:1. We're playing the small-sample size game here, and it's eerily similar to falling down the bar skank ladder at closing time - at some point, you're just grasping for something to entertain. There's not much to learn here.

So why the (relatively) big advantage for the White Sox? Well, let's start with the easy one - Nick Blackburn kind of sucks. Now, his ERA+ of 101 is essentially league-average, but it's really not all that indicative of how well he's pitched. His ERA of 4.14 is bolstered by what professionals refer to as a "butt load" of unearned runs, as his RA is 4.86. His peripherals state that's much closer to what his ERA should look like - while his 3:1 k/bb ratio is serviceable, he's striking out less than 5 guys per 9IP. That's flaccid, Jamie Moyer (or Raphael Palmeiro, if you'd prefer a Viagra joke) territory - and without the 'guile' or move the NL that kept Moyer upright. As a result, his xFIP is more like 4.80.

So how is Blackburn doing it? According to Guillen after his win last week, the simple answer is "luck" (I believe Ozzie actually noted that Blackburn was "fucking terrible" and "didn't have shit" as well). As much as it sucks to say it, Ozzie's probably right. It appears Blackburn has gotten a little lucky on balls in play, with a BABIP of .314 but an unusual GB/FB/LD split, with 21% of all balls in play as line drives and a whooping 45% as groundballs. This means that his expected BABIP should be closer to .340. He's also benefitted from a good number of infield pop-ups, rare for a guy with a 1.3 GB/FB ratio. He's an enigma - and he's likely getting lucky, as his past numbers and "stuff" don't seem to reflect such an extreme split. As a result, his HR/G is way low, even though an average number of fly balls are going for homers.

So what to look for tonight? Well, in short, home runs. If Blackburn can get a few strikeouts from the free-swinging Sox (Alexei Ramirez last took a walk when Fidel was still alive, and the team as a whole has more hackers than gov.sarah@yahoo.com) and continue to get ground balls, the Twins will be well on their way, even though their defensive efficiency is way down from the recent past. Most likely, Blackburn will give up a couple of longballs into the shallow corners at the Cell, leading to the soft underbelly of the Twins bullpen - a unit with the potential to get Ike and Tina'ed at any given point until Nathan comes in. I wouldn't be particularly surprised to see Nathan throw 2+ innings tonight. Hell, Gardenhire has to play to win - Nathan could actually come in at any point and I wouldn't be too surprised.

The Twins will need Denard Span and Alexi Cassilla to keep up their Prestige-like morphing into Pedroia and Drew, and get on base in front of the lefty twins - Danks shows no real platoon split nor any real special ability to be hard on lefties, so removing Kubel for Cuddyer may actually be a mistake in a ballpark where mistakes land in the gentrified rubble of Cabrini-Green.

It should be a great game, with plenty of small ball and longball to keep both me and Tony LaRussa interested until we both pass out behind the wheel driving home. God bless playoff baseball.

Great Moments in Rap History, vol. XXIV

On the way in for work this morning, our local KISS FM station (note: fuck KISS FM) played an all-time classic hip hop track, truly one of the few worthy of the legacy of Rakim, Grandmaster Flash and MC Paul Barman - the inimitable "Shake Ya Tailfeather" by P.Diddy and Nelly, off the Bad Boys II (not 2) soundtrack.

(IMPORTANT NOTE: Do NOT, under any circumstances, click on the link above - the video for this masterpiece is absolutely, jaw-droppingly retarded. Massive numbers of extra chromosomes. Holy shit.)

I'm sure you've heard the song - it's the classic early-2000's ripoff of basically every latent regional rap trend to that point . . . it has sirens everywhere like it's down-south crunk (even though the artists are from NYC and St. Louis), it has the bouncy, lame "fake-horn-synths" for the beat like it's B-more gutter shit (note: this same trick works beautifully in MIA's "XR2" - well, and in basically any Diplo song), it has black chicks hitting the floor, hard, throughout the video. All in all, it's the balls.

However, at the beginning (about 1:39 into the video linked above, if you're fucking stupid and clicked), one of the most perfect moments in rap music shines its light on us all. As Diddy regales us with stupid ass chatter about God knows what and the women begin (indeed) shaking their tailfeathers, Nelly lets loose with the following declaration, cleverly drawn directly to the front by the over-engineered production:

AND THE BAND PLAYED ON!

Note that there is no lead-up to this, nor any indication of why, exactly, Nelly lets loose with this particular phrase. Because of that, it's clear that Nelly is referencing the 1993 movie of the same title, a seminal HBO production describing the rise of AIDS in the gay community of San Francisco in the late '70s and early '80s (note that the IMDB plot keywords has "male nudity" as the very first one - uh, guys?).

Very clever of Nelly to interject a little bit of knowledge into a song that he knew would receive immense airplay from its ties to a cinematic marvel starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. It's that kind of knowledge injection that led us to drop the moniker Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) just five short years after the disease was discovered. For that, I wholeheartedly endorse Nelly's insane "AND THE BAND PLAYED ON" as . . . a great moment in Rap History.

Christmas in August -

It's that time again . . fantasy football season! While I haven't had even thirty seconds to really prepare, time waits for no man to be +EV against his friends and coworkers, and the first money draft took place tonight. It's a $20 12-team league, mostly guys having a good time - standard Yahoo scoring with bonuses (+4 for 300 yds/150 rushing/150 receiving), the only real "quirk" being that it's QB/RB/RB/WR/WR/WR instead of /Flex - I did not know this when I made my Round 4 selection, obviously. My team:

Urbanski'sWheelchair

Round	Pick	Player	Position
1.	(7)	Marion Barber	RB
2.	(18)	Braylon Edwards	WR
3.	(31)	Willis McGahee	RB
4.	(42)	Earnest Graham	RB
5.	(55)	Donovan McNabb	QB
6.	(66)	Donald Driver	WR
7.	(79)	Anthony Gonzalez	WR
8.	(90)	Matt Forte	RB
9.	(103)	Jonathan Stewart	RB
10.	(114)	Reggie Williams	WR
11.	(127)	Philip Rivers	QB
12.	(138)	Tony Scheffler	TE
13.	(151)	Drew Bennett	WR
14.	(162)	Indianapolis	DEF
15.	(175)	Josh Brown	K

Picking #7 overall is a weird spot - Steven Jackson actually fell there, but Linehan sounds serious about his contract issues, and I couldn't really pull the trigger. I'm wondering whether this is a mistake, but even if it is, it's probably only a handful of points over the course of the season and probably reduces my variance quite a bit.

The Graham pick should likely be Calvin Johnson (who went with the next pick), since it's a 2 RB league (and he has the same bye week as my two starters) - I'll likely try to package him for a middle-tier receiver if at all possible. Past that, I think this is as good as I can reasonably expect to do in a 12-team league - if my starting receivers were Edwards/Johnson/Driver (or Gonzalez, depending on whether Marvin Harrison's knees are made of glass and/or he shot someone) I'd be ecstatic, but I can't complain too much as-is, especially since projecting WRs is basically divining-rod bullshit at this point.

I love Forte, Williams and Bennett as sleepers, especially since I was able to take them incredibly low. This opens up a TON of trading opportunities for me in the regular season, and I can try to find this season's Colston or Bowe without worry of having to drop a "real" player. It's pretty win/win from this angle.

On the whole, I think this is a great example of letting the draft come to you - especially since the Yahoo auto-pick (of which there were four in this draft) overvalues receivers in this scenario because of the imbalance, I was able to parlay some very good players at late positions. I felt like I'd just nailed the prom queen after the McGahee and McNabb picks, and even have a small (very small, like Asian small) amount of backup in case those two get injured (note: both will get injured). Essentially, I got somewhere between 2 and 3 second-round picks, and picked up receivers who may just break through with 10 TD seasons with the right breaks, even after making a terrible pick in the 4th. Life is good.

Empathy for Alicia Sacramone

Brown sucks.

On a serious note, modern sports media LOVES to focus on the "gritty" individual who elevates his or her game to a previously unexpected level under the brightest lights. We often forget that the opposite happens too - sometimes people "choke" when the stakes are the highest. Usually we empathize with poor Alicia because that is soooooooooo hard, while we shit our pants over those who excel in the "clutch" (the David Ortiz corollary) . . . however, honestly, these are top-tier athletes who have practiced and perfected their respective craft over hundreds of hours. There is no evidence that certain individuals "choke" - in fact, our sample size (often one or two events) means it's much more likely that dumb luck is the biggest factor.

However, "luck" is a shitty lead for NBC - instead, we get a crying 20 year old woman. We live in a weird world - I don't think we can characterize her performance as anything other than "choking" but I'm also not sure that characterization is really all that important. I have no idea why this seems so strange to me, or why I even sat and watched Olympic gymnastics tonight (actually, yeah I do - also I was drinking with friends, but w/e), but there it is.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

So I've had more time to explore this invention they call the interweb as I enjoy my whopping 3 week vacation from law school (and by "vacation," I mean working 60 hours a week as opposed to working 50 while taking classes). As a result, I've been "enjoying" Murray Chass' new blog on baseball. To the 5 people who read this blog, you remember my earlier postings regarding an email conversation with Mr. Murray Chass, the Hall of Fame sportswriter previously affiliated with the New York Times. Well, after been reading Mr. Chass' postings, I have noted one important thing: he hasn't missed any opportunity to take a dig at his old news paper.

For example: http://www.murraychass.com/?p=85
and, earlier: http://www.murraychass.com/?p=25

Now, a couple of criticisms of the Times wouldn't be such a big deal, except for the fact that it's taken up an amusingly large portion of his blog postings. Is this a case of bad blood between the newspaper giant and its former employee? Is he starting to understand the blogger's criticism of the mainstream meda? Probably more the former than the latter, but still interesting.

Manuelito: 7.5 years of being the balls

Blatantly stolen from SoSH: A pictorial, Manny-style. It was a great run, my man, you're still one of the most fun players to ever watch wear the whites.