DII Le Moyne Def. 25 Syracuse

WHO THE FUCK CARES ESPN, IT'S A FUCKING EXHIBITION GAME!

Vicente padilla Cheddar Bob'ed himself

Vicente Padilla shot himself in the leg in Nicaragua while trying to chase down his plantation slaves..errr..hunting. No charges are expected to be issued against Padilla, which is good considering Ugueth Urbina is still in prison for his "hunting" mishap. Honestly, I dont want to live in a world where athletes dont shoot themselves in the leg. It's as American as apple pie. Or as Mexican as taco bell. Or as Russian as vodka. You get the point

The Chicago Cubs Are Gay

No seriously. Laura Ricketts, part of owner of the Cubs is a lesbian and the first owner of a team to be openly homosexual


Actual picture of Laura Ricketts


How all lesbians should be

World Series Milestones approaching

In game 5 of the World Series Chase Utley hit two homeruns. That gives him 5 homeruns so far in this World Series. He is now tied with Reggie Jackson who hit 5 homeruns for the New York Yankees in the 1977 World Series. Utley will have at least one more game to break the record. If the Phillies can win game 6, then he may have another to help his team win the World Series and be the sole record holder of the most homeruns in the World Series which has not been broken for 30 years. He is also the second person with Kansas City's Willie Aikens as the only players who have had multi-homer games in the World Series. I was surprised that there hasn’t been more, and by bigger names.

Utley’s teammate Ryan Howard has been struggling so far in this World Series. He is hitting .158 in 19 at-bats of 5 World Series games so far. He has no homeruns, 2 doubles, three hits, and 12 strikeouts in 19 at-bats. Twelve strikeouts in 19 at-bats is pretty bad and he is also approaching a record for the World Series. Sadly, his record is not of the good type. He is approaching the record for most strikeouts in the World Series. He has tied Willie Wilson of Kansa City in 1980 with 12 strikeouts in the World Series. Howard still has the chance to break the record and be the sole holder of it.

Why is Jim Hendry so bad at drafting?

Can someone please explain to me how Jim Hendry, a former Director of Player Development, is so bad at drafting players to develop? There are, sadly, no stats to answer this question available on Fangraphs. Maybe BP has worked out a metric by now to explain this, but I am currently unaware of such a metric.

Since the Cubs promoted Hendry to GM (2002), he has not selected a single quality first round draft pick. Is this the Curse of Mark Prior? Take a look at who the Cubs drafted and who they passed up to get them over the past 7 seasons and you will see why the Cubs have absolutely no minor league depth:

2002: Bobby Brownlie (who?)
Passed over: Joe Blanton, Matt Cain, Joey Votto, John Lester, Jonathan Broxton, Curtis Granderson

2003: Ryan Harvey (who?)
Passed over: Nick Markakis, John Danks, Aaron Hill, Chad Billingsley, Carlos Quentin, Adam Jones, Andre Ethier, Sean Marcum
Of interest: the Cubs did draft a quality hitter in Jake Fox, but he is a DH at large in the NL...

2004: The Cubs gave up their 1st round draft pick to sign Type A free agent LaTroy Hawkins
Passed over: Yovanni Gallardo, Dustin Pedroia, Jonathan Papelbon, Adam Lind

2005: Mark Pawelek (who?)
Passed over: Nolan Reimold, Kevin Slowey, Jacoby Ellsbury, Matt Garza, Colby Rasmus, Clay Buchholz, Michael Bowden

2006: Tyler Colvin (eh...)
Passed over: Travis Snyder, Daniel Bard, Chris Coghland, Joba Chamberlain, Brett Anderson, Chris Tillman, Justin Masterson,

2007: Josh Vitters (2.4% walk rate in the minors, can't hit A ball pitching)
Passed over: Matt Wieters, Matt LaPorta, Rick Porcello, Jordan Zimmerman, Jason Heyward, Julio Borbon, Aaron Poreda

2008: Andrew Cashner (a middle tier relief pitcher? really? in the first round? ugh...)
Passed over: Daniel Schlereth (a much, much, much better relief pitcher)

This isn't the case of a bust or two, but a pattern of poor decisions. A small few of the Cubs later round picks have been decent (Notably Ricky Nolasco and Jake Fox), but the Cubs tend to either trade those players away or let them toll away in the minors until they are basically 30 (see Randy Wells, Micah Hoffpauir). We can only hope the Cubs' 2009 pick, , won't continue the curse.

The sad part of this all is that the Cubs have one of baseball's top payrolls and the organization simply squanders its resources. The Cubs are like the Yankees from 2002-2008. Wasteful spending, poor drafting and bloated contracts. The only difference is that the Yankees can spend a bazillion dollars a year and afford to make as many bad contracts as they want. They'll just up the cost of a ticket to $4,000. The organization needs a breath of fresh air in the front office and that means canning Hendry and starting anew. Hendry has made some great acquisitions for the Cubs (Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, Rich Harden), but he's also given away more than his fair share of quality players for absolutely nothing in return (Michael Wuertz, Ricky Nolasco, Felix Pie, David Aardsma) and filled the team's holes with junk (Aaron Miles, Kevin Gregg, Neil Cotts, et. al). The Cubs desperately need someone who knows how to spend money and spot talent so that in 2 years, when all of the Cubs bloated contracts are off the books (except that of Soriano, who is signed until he is 52), the organization can start anew, rebuild and contend with confidence. Any suggestions of who's out there?

A Memorable Halloween night at a Basketball game

Saturday night on Halloween during the Spurs and Kings Game at AT&T Center someone decided to play a Halloween joke and released a live bat during the game. On a fast break layup by Kevin Martin the bat tried to dive into him. They continued to play the game anyways. Later in the game the bat filed by Ginobili who got tired of it and he handled the situation. Ginobili tracked the bat and grabbed it out of mid-air. Then he handed the bat to the arena staff as the crowd roared in applause. Then he cleaned his hand with sanitizer and the game continued. I guess earlier in the game they did try to capture the bat with a net, but they couldn’t do it.

Here is a video which is very entertaining:


I was surprised I didn’t hear about his earlier!

Are The Saints The Best Team In The NFL?

The Saints have always had an amazing offense (more specifically an amazing passing offense) since Drew Brees joined the team. They're rushing offense has always been shaky because Reggie Bush sucks, but their biggest problem was always there defense. However, this year, both the running game and the defense have improved. Although I'm writing this post while the Saints still have 3 minutes left to play, I think it's safe to say that the Saints and the Colts are the two best teams in the NFL. But can we say the Saints are #1?

QB: Peyton Manning this year will probably be the MVP so I think it's safe to say he's better than Brees, but Brees is still top 3 in this league.

RB: This year, the Saints have a darn good rushing offense led by Pierre Thomas (and Mike Bell when Thomas is injured). The Saints rank 10th in the NFL in rushing yards, 8th in YPA, 3rd in YPG, and t-1st in rushing TDs (and I'm confident they will have the lead after this game ends. The Saints are very good at running the ball and pretty darn efficient. Bell and Thomas are both in the top 14 RBs according to footballoutsiders.com. Take this versus the Colts. They rank 30th in rushing YPG and 7th in rushing TDs.

Takeaways: The single most important causal factor into which football teams wins is turnovers. Both the Colts and Saints have obviously are very good. Both are pretty much even but Saints (+8) hold the slight edge over the Colts (+6)

Defense Lines: Neither team is all that great at defending against the run on the line, but NO (23rd) still holds the slight edge over Indy (26th). Indy however holds the advantage in the passing game. Indy ranks 11th to NO's 20th. Indy also holds the advantage in the sacks department- probably the second biggest factor into winning games. Indy has 20 compared to NO's 14.

Rushing D: NO ranks 2nd in the amount of rushing yards they gave to opponents, 6th in YPG, but have given up 8 rushing TDs versus Indy who ranks 17th in rushing yards given up and rushing YPG, but have given up three less rushing TDs. Granted I think the Colts will be much better against the run once Bob Sanders stays healthy, but they are not that good right now.

Secondary: Darren Sharper is one of the best corner in the game leading the league in INTs. In fact, NO is 3rd in the league for interceptions with 13 compared to Indy's 7. New Orleans ranks 2nd in the NFL defending an opponent's #1 wide out compared to Indy ranking 16. The Saints rank 3rd in the NFL defending a team's #2 receiver vs Indy ranking 21st. No also holds the TE advantage ranking 3rd to Indy's 9th place.

Overall defense: Footballoutsiders.com ranks NO as the 7th best defense compared to Indy ranking 10th. These defenses are pretty close but NO holds the advantage in passing D, rushing D, defensive efficiency and takeaways.

The New Orleans Saints hold the advantage in running the ball, defending the run, and defending the pass. And boy howdy can they they throw the ball. if the Saints lose to the Pats I'll be skeptical about ranking them ahead of Indy just because Indy has the AFC advnatage and thus a harder schedule, but damn the Saints are good this year

Why Isn't Correll Buckhalter Starting?

As much as it pains me to say this, because every year there seems to be at least one rookie RB that ends up in the top 12 in fantasy every year and this year I picked it to be Knowshon Moreno, but Buckhalter should be starting over Moreno. Rather, if I were a Denver Broncos fan, I would rather McDaniels start, and give more carries to, Buckhalter.

This year, Buckhalter is averging 6.0 YPC and has fumbled twice and lost it once. Take this versus Moreno who has a 3.9 YPC and has fumbled three times (within the past four games) and has lost all three of them. I believe Moreno seems to be getting the goal line carries and has 44 more carries than Buckhlater, yet Moreno only has 1 more rushing TD than Buckhalter. In fact, Moreno only has 52 more yards than Buckhalter with his 44 more carries.

It's hard to judge these guys using football sabermetrics because of the lack of carries Buckhalter has gotten, but Moreno ranks about 26th out of 39 RBs with significant carries with negative DVOA and DYAR (which essentially means he's really inefficient) versues Bukhalter that ranks 3rd amoung RBs with limited carries with positive DVOA and DYAR.

So as a fantasy owner of Moreno, I'm happy seems to be getting carries, but I think Josh McDaniel is being dumb here. It's like Joe Torre batting Matt Kemp 7th.

A-Rod is too unclutch, take 2

Game 4 was riddled with "A-Rod is 1-11", "A-Rod is 1-12" and "A-Rod is 1-13" in the world series talk. It's too bad that 0-8 of A-Rod's "slump" came in consecutive games, one of which was pitched by Cliff Lee, who shut down everyone except Derek Jeter in Game 1. How come nobody is ragging on Teixeira, who is hitting almost as bad as Nick Swisher? Can't we lay off A-Rod, who has been an absolute beast in the post season outside of two games? No one has ever had 8 bad at bats in a row before, right?

I wonder if it does any good to mention that A-Rod had an "unclutch" 2-R HR in game 3 and game winning double in the top of the 9th today. I guess hitting in the clutch doesn't count as being clutch. It's all about being David Eckstein and hitting .400 with a .390 OBP and .400 SLG.

Cause you know, WPA is a bullshit stat made up by nerds in their mother's basements, right?

(also, how is this the first use of the unclutch tag?)

____

For the record, here is A-Rod's WPA by game in the WS:
1: -.096 (Teixeira and Damon weren't much better and Cliff Lee pitched an amazing game)
2: -.090 (Pedro, Howard, Damon and Utley were all worse; Werth had a -.087 WPA in game 2)
3: +.165 (third best amongst all players in game 4)
4: +.280 (second to only Pedro Feliz in game 4)

That's a cumulative +.259 WPA in the World Series. Four of those = 1 win; by proxy, A-Rod's .259 WPA showing over four games means that he's helped the Yankees win one of them. Please Tim McCarver. Keep complaining.

The Shift that gave the Series away

In game 4 of the World Series on Sunday I saw something new that I have never seen happen in baseball before. In the ninth inning with the game tied at 4 Brad Lidge was pitching to Mark Teixeira with Johnny Damon on first base. Teixeira was batting from the left side so the Phillies had the shift on. Johnny Damon decided to steal second and slide in easily. Then he popped up and ran to third base. He stole two bases on the same play without an error, rundown or anything else you ordinary see happen. With the shift being on, the third basemen was nowhere near it so even though a Philly had the ball and was ready to throw it to someone, there was no one. The pitcher Lidge should have been covering because he was the only option, but he was obviously not told too and didn’t think of it in time. Charlie Manuel should have reviewed that, but I have never seen that happen before with a shift on. So Damon ended up getting a free base which was the go ahead run at the time. The Yankees ended up scoring more runs, but that opened the flood gates. Now it will be hard for them to come back being down in the series 3-1.

I have never see a player steal two bases with the shit on before. Has anyone ever seen that? I am specifically asking you “The 'Bright' One”.

Chicago Bulls Captain’s for this season

The Chicago Bulls recently decided their captain’s for this season. They selected Luol Deng, Kirk Hinrich and Lindsey Hunter. The players selected whom they wanted as captains. This is how the Bulls have done it for several seasons now. Kirk Hinrich has been a captain for a few years now and makes sense. In the past he was a starter though. Now he is a role player and comes off the bench. A bench player can be a captain though. This is Luol Deng’s second year as a captain I think and he was injured most of last year. He is the only captain that is a starter. I find the third captain interesting. Lindsey Hunter has been in the league for 17 years, but at this point in his career he rarely plays. He is on the roster to mentor Rose, but he will only play if we have some injuries to the backcourt, and even then it will probably only be a few minutes. I would have liked to see Brad Miller as a captain. He is a veteran who is supposed to get along with everyone very well and be the glue for keeping the clubhouse loose. I am not a player to decide though….oh well.

Cubs looking at new spring training Facilities

Tom Ricketts and his family just took over control of the Chicago Cubs last week. Their first order of business is figuring out what to do for a spring training facility. The Cubs have been in Mesa for spring training since the 1950s. The Cubs have been where they are now since 1979. With the spring training facility and HoHoKam Stadium being old now and outdated they are looking into other options. The Cubs have been talking with the mayor of Mesa, Scott Smith for a few years now and they have not seen enough improvements for their satisfaction. Scott Smith says they will do whatever they need to because they want the Cubs for revenue, but the Cubs are now getting some good offers by others.

The city of Naples in Florida is making some offers to try and lure the Cubs out of Mesa. They have said on Thursday that they will try and convince the Cubs to move to Naples. Recently Tom and Laura Ricketts have visited the Naples area to look at possible sites there. The Cubs is supposedly looking for a minimum of 120 contiguous acres for a 15,000-seat stadium, six practice fields, parking, and training area. The construction the Cubs would want would take approximately 11 months. The proposal by the city of Naples would have a "Wrigley village" to be a destination and complete area for fans to visit. The offer by Naples is supposed to be competitive with the spring training facility the Chicago White Sox and Dodgers share.

It would be weird for Mesa not to be home for the Cubs during Spring Training.

Ricketts Keeping things the way they are…….for now

Tom Ricketts, the new chairman of the Chicago Cubs has said that he is not going to make any changes in personal. This means that Crane Kenney, Jim Hendry, and Lou Piniella, are all safe for the time being. I was hoping he would come in and clean house little. Jim Hendry has locked the Cubs into so much money over the next few years with these big back loaded deals and there doesn’t seem to be a need for Kenney now with Tom Ricketts, so why keep them? It looks that Tom Ricketts is going to keep things the same for next season and learn the business over the 2010 season. Then once he has a better understanding of it, he may make changes he can justify. Tom Ricketts has also said he doesn’t plan to bring in anymore baseball people to add another layer. He says he trusts the staff in place and doesn’t plan to do that. This was surprising to me because there were many reports he would. This makes sense though. Even though Hendry had a few years left on his contract, why bring in someone else and keep Hendry. That would just make things harder to do business. Let’s just hope they can get the team ready for next season!

Mario Williams Abducts Little Boys

So if you're kid goes out and plays by himself for 60 minutes, Mario Williams will kidnap him.

Chicago Bears Salary Notables: 2009

-Cutler obviously leads the team getting paid over $11 million this year

-Garrett Wolfe ($615,000) and Adrian Peterson ($1,078,000) gets paid more than Greg Olson ($610,000)

-Contenders for most overpaid player
1) Orlando Pace ($5,333,333)
2) Tommie Harris ($9,080,000)
3) Pino Tisoisamo ($1,5000,000)

-Worth Every Penny
1) Matt Forte ($767,500)
2) Johnny Knox ($361,000)
3) Alex Brown ($2,980,000)
4) Lance Briggs ($6,767,000)

-Players we still have to give money to: Brian Griese, Kyle Orton, Cedric Benson, Marty Booker

Source: ChicagoBears.com

New Ownership for the Cubs

Last week the reigns of the Chicago Cubs were handed over from the Tribune Company to the Ricketts family who bought the Cubs including Wrigley Field and a share in Comcast Sports Net Chicago for $845 million. On Friday The Ricketts family had a press conference to talk about the Cubs and their plans for them. The board of directors will be Tom, Pete, Todd, and Laura Ricketts. The chairmen will be Tom Ricketts whom will be the spokesman. They are going to be visible active owners. They said you will see all of them at the games. This will be a big change for Cubs fans because in the past we had the owners sitting high in the tribune towers, appearing not to even care about baseball. To management the Cubs were only a business and an investment. Now we have the Ricketts family who has a special connection and bond to the Cubs. The Cubs are a business to them, but it is also more than a business, it is a team they love and want to succeed before anything. Tom Ricketts said they will put profits back into the Cubs. That will be one of the biggest changes from the Tribune ownership. During the 80’s Tom would go to almost every weekend home game with his brothers. That is where he met his wife in the bleachers. Now after three years the Cubs ownership is settled and looks to have a good owner.

Cliff Lee’s effortless catch

Shouldn’t he show some effort for a World Series game?

Head Coach excited for the game………………..

Isn't a head coach supposed to be excited for the season to start?


Stan makes the NBA exciting!

GOI Football Predictions: Week Eight

My selections are in bold.
Here are my Picks for this week:
Denver at Baltimore
Houston at Buffalo
Cleveland at Chicago
St. Louis at Detroit
Miami at N.Y. Jets
San Francisco at Indianapolis
Seattle at Dallas
N.Y. Giants at Philadelphia
Jacksonville at Tennessee
Oakland at San Diego
Minnesota at Green Bay
Carolina at Arizona
Atlanta at New Orleans

Vikings Players Are Dumb

Remember when Brett Favre first came to Minnesota, like last week, and ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter reported there was a "schism" in the Vikings locker room because there was a lot of Purple players who wanted Tavaris Jackson over Brett Favre? Yeah, I bet they feel pretty dumb right now- except for the fact that they're leading the division...

Revisiting DME's Hatred Of Dustin Pedroia

I made a lot of predictions for the 2009 season. Some were correct (see Javier Vasquez, Josh Beckett (May-August), Justin Verlander, Dice-K, et. al). Some were incredibly wrong (see John Lester, Kevin Youkilis, Gavin Floyd, Felix Hernandez, et. al). But one thing that I have adamantly argued, perhaps more than my love for Dan Haren is how overrated I thought Dustin Pedroia was -- both in real life and fantasy -- heading into this season.

I had some harsh things to say about Dustin Pedroia going into 2009:

"Something about an MVP who can't hit 20 HRs in unsatisfying. While undeniably useful as 5 category 2B last year, his increasing GB/FB ratio and declining BB% are worrisome. With a strong LD% and speed, his high AVG should persist, but don't expect anything above 15 HRs. Considering that all but a few second basemen are second tier, it's not worth wasting a third round pick on a 2B (unless you get Kinlser or Utley at a ridiculous discount) when you can have the negligibly worse Mark DeRosa 12 rounds later."

Was I right to hate on Pedroia? Let's look at their comparative batting lines.

DeRosa 2009:
.250/.319/.433 (.327 wOBA),23 HR, 78 R, 78 RBI, 3 SB

Pedroia 2009:
.296/.371/.447 (.360 wOBA), 15 HR, 115 R, 72 RBI, 20 SB

Pedroia definitely regressed some this season, but retained most of his value from 2008. Yahoo ranked Pedroia as the 8th best 2B and 49th best fantasy player overall. Pedroia made some gains in his peripherals (increased walk rate, decreased strikeout rate) and regressed in others (Pedroia saw his ISO fall from .167 to .152, he clipped less LD's and his speed score dipped a full point (which can be noticed in the decrease in SB%). Pedroia' .360 wOBA, however, is hardly anything to sneeze at (let alone for a second basemen) and his 2009 level of production is more akin to what I have associated his skill set with. Take note that Pedroia's Yahoo ranking going into 2009 was 23. He was clearly overrated last season, but perhaps after a more "milding" 2009, Pedroia's 2010 fantasy value will be more break-even than loss.

DeRosa, on the other hand, took a nose dive in the batting average department due to a nose dive in line drives (from +22% from 2006-2008 to 16.6% in 2009) and therefore BABIP (.286 BABIP in 2009 [in line with his seasonal xBABIP], despite a career .315 mark). Perhaps much of it has to due with the wrist injury, but DeRosa's ISO fell from .196 to .183, the walk rate dipped from the double digit rates he posted on the Cubs to 8.4% and the strikeout rate also increased. The resulting .327 wOBA was league average and Fangraphs generously valued him at a temperate 1.6 WAR due to the fact that he played only slightly below average defense at 2B last year (see Positional Adjustment). DeRosa was ranked as the 144th player going into 2009 and ended up being #183 by the end of the season (21st best 2B, behind a handful of undrafted players). These are not good signs for a soon-to-be 35 year old 2B coming off of wrist surgery.

So yeah, I was wrong about DeRosa in 2009.

However, if DeRosa was healthy and not playing on the shitty offensive "team" that was the Indians for half of last season, who knows what his numbers would have looked like. Even with the regression in BB%, K%, and ISO, if you were to adjust DeRosa's 2009 batting line for a .315 BABIP (I have to make the assumption that DeRosa's wrist problems hindered his ability to drive the ball in 2009, given his Matt Kemp-like LD% from 2006-2008), DeRosa's 2009 BA would be .282, his OBP would be in the .350 range and, assuming the same ISO for the additional hits, his SLG would be around .533. A .282/.350/.533 batting line (.883 OPS) is nothing to sneeze at and would have provided much more offensive value than Pedroia's .813 OPS.

So what am I saying? Basically, DeRosa, in my opinion got screwed by his wrist injury and bad luck. If I am right and DeRosa can fully recover from his off-season wrist surgery (ask Derrek Lee, it's definitely not something that's easy to come back from), he has the potential to continue to provide much value, wherever his team may play him.

I refuse to apologize for my prediction because although I may have been wrong, I still believe in DeRosa. A 25 HR season with 100 R/RBI was not out of the question if he was on a better team and healthy. Let's hope he gets fixed up for next year and continue to be more than just the clubhouse presence he is well known for (and the Cubs so desperately missed).

On a separate note, A-Rod went 0-4 last night with 3 K's. Let the flurry of "A-Rod is unclutch" headlines begin...

Curt Schilling knows a thing or two about baseball

It is well documented that I do not particularly like Curt Schilling. However, Schilling had a few insightful words on his blog and on the radio today.

In particular, I have to approve of this comment he made (I've taken the liberty of accentuating the sexually arousing parts):

Did you view other power hitters as a bigger threat than [J.D.] Drew?

[Schilling]: Not at all. Not at all. I’ll tell you why.

His career has been built around getting on base. You make that argument, ‘I don’t want a guy taking a walk with a runner in scoring position.’ On-base percentage is what drives … I never wanted to face the guys who were .370-plus percentage on-base guys. Generally, for the most part, those guys don’t strike out a lot. J.D. strikes out more than most. For the most part, those are the guys who, their value isn’t necessarily just getting on base every time. It’s just as much the fact that in their 0-for-2 night, they’re going to draw two walks and make the opposing pitcher throw 24 pitches, as opposed to Vladimir Guerrero, who’s going to go 0-for-4, draw no walks and make me throw five pitches. There’s a deeper value. I promise you that the depth of the statistical analysis that they do on these players to identify their dollar value is far different and far more unique and probably as off the wall as anything you’ve ever heard.

If you read the article, you nonetheless get the feeling that even when Curt Schilling is right, he's still an asshole. Maybe it's the excessive use of the phrase "I'll tell you why"...maybe it's just the fact that he's Curt Schilling.

Funny enough, Fangraphs put up an article earlier today detailing the value that J.D. Drew has provided in a Red Sox uniform. I wonder if Schilling read the article...

Thats what they call the "sweat spot"

What we learn at med school...

Stupid Statistics

I love statistics, but I have come across a few instances where subjectivity plays to big of a factor into certain stats.

Stat #1
The Bears rank 14th this year in pass blocking on the O-Line according to footballoutsiders.com

What!? This can not be right. This offense line is fucking garbage! I think that because Jay is able to get the ball off in time and gets tackled after he throws the ball that the offensive line doesn't charged with the shit it should

Stat #2
There is a stat on pro-football reference called "Big Games"

Here's what defines a big game 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing or receiving, or 4 TDs- what arbitrary shit is this!?

GOI Football Prediction Results: Week Seven

Pigskin Pick 'Em

1) Cubsfan4evr

Overall: 68 out of 102
Last Week: 8 out of 13

2) Sexy Rexy

Overall: 65 out of 102
Last Week: 9 out of 13

2) The 'Bright' One

Overall: 65 out of 102
Last Week: 9 out of 13

Fantasy Football League

1) Cubsfan4evr (4-3) 669 points
2) The 'Bright' One (4-3) 656 points
3) Sexy Rexy (4-3) 651 points
4) DME (3-4) 586 points

Eliminator Challenge

1) Sexy Rexy (4) Patriots
1) Cubsfan4evr (4) Green Bay
3) TBO (3) DNP
3) J O'Brien (3) Steelers

A-Rod is too unclutch

Alex Rodriguez hit .429 with a .567 OBP, 3 HR, 6 R and 6 RBI over the course of the six game ALCS series against the Angels. His WPA (win probability added) per game was, in order, +.027, +.124, +.061, +.171, +.005, and +.143. That is a weighted average of +.0885 per game (.531 cumulative WPA), meaning A-Rod, as 1/25th of the Yankee's squad, is giving his team just short of a 9% chance of winning each and every game in the ALCS.

Now, granted, C.C. Sabathia pitched two amazing games in which he had WPAs of .365 and .314 and I am not saying that he did not deserve the ALCS MVP award. However, it does go to prove a point that A-Rod's post-season production is undervalued.

FJM: Bill Simmons Edition, Part II

A line Simmons said with Matthew Berry on his podcast

This year's Angels are very similar to what the Brewers had last year, that they have a lot of Black players which really helps them with their swagger

And the Angels, like what the Brewers did last year, got ousted from the playoffs and did not make it to the World Series. Why are "sports experts" allowed to just make up all these intangibles! All these unquantifiable quantities Simmons has assigned all these teams are teams that ended up not going to the World Series. Notice how Simmons didn't assign any intangibles to the Phillies or Yankees? (Well, the Phillies are a NL team so Simmons doesn't even know they exist)

A line Simmons has repeatedly said on his podcast:

The Angels scare me, they have the "Nick Adenhart" factor, something all these players can rally around; they want to win it for him

Listen, I in no way want to make light of the tragic death of Adenhart, but look how how this "Adenhart factor" has helped the Angels. In a short luck-based series, LA defeated Boston, and in the longer series, they got beat by the Yankees. And did the Angels really ever feel like they were in this series? Did the "Adenhart factor" just help the Angels finally got out of the first round. Does Vlad Guerrero have to die in order for the Angels to the World Series? Or maybe some little kid can wish they win the pennant and that is the "intangible" the Angels will need.

SIDENOTE: How come in all these sports movies, the goal isn't to win the World Series? In "Angels in the Outfield", the Joseph-Gordon Levitt character only wanted the Angels to win the pennant. If you're gonna wish for the Angels to win and be good, why not ask for Angels to help the baseball team win it all, as opposed to just MAKING IT to the World Series. In Major League (I), their goal was just to make it to the playoffs. You know what would have stuck it to the new owner and gain a lot of fans, win a World Series.

Ochocinco joins the gay sex

Ron Zook watching Juice play QB