Larry David Has A Boner For Derek Jeter

For anyone who does not watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, you are missing out on the funnies show going. And yes, even Kenny Powers himself can't compete with the immortal Jew that is Larry David. Btw Sexy Rexy, how was Larry David not part of our Characters Welcome competition? Dude is a definite final 4 candidate.

This season of Curb may be the funnies one yet. Larry is divorced, living with a black dude, reuniting with the old Seinfeld gang, and more annoying than ever. Basically, he's DME but with a bunch of money. In one episode this season, Larry even gets into an argument about the greatness that is Derek Jeter. Larry defends him to the end, like a loyal New Yorker, even stating that "there's not one person's who's even said that[that Jeter sucks], except this asshole". Apparently Larry David has never been on our blog.

Derek Jeter is washed up

According to MLB.com, Deter Jeter will have a supporting role in the upcoming Adam McKay movie "The Other Guys." The kicker? Derek Jeter will be playing a washed up version of himself, four years removed from baseball. The promotional picture (below) is absolutely hilarious.



I guess the backstory to the plot is that ESPN jerked off so much to Derek Jeter that their dick fell off. Either that or John Kruk ate everyone else from Baseball Tonight. Why else wouldn't Captain Clutch be slumming it up with Joe Morgan in 2018?

Quick Rant, then more law homework

TBO and I have been talking about how underrated A-Roid is over the past few weeks, but both of us have been too lazy to do the leg work. Despite a owning a .289/.377/.524 [.901 OPS, .384 wOBA] career postseason slash line with 10 HR, 26 R, 25 RBI in 166 post season AB's (which extrapolates to an incredibly unclutch 36 HR, 94 R, 91 RBI season over the course of 600 ABs), Alex Rodriguez is terrible and unclutch. It doesn't matter that, as Fangraphs pointed out the other day (I have updated the stats), Alex Rodriguez has +0.79 Clutch* rating in the post season since 2002, while Mr. November has a -1.00 Clutch* rating over that same time frame.

*Clutch is a mathematical formula that determines "[h]ow much better or worse a player does in high leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment." (I feel like Lexis Nexus, posting footnotes in the middle of my documents...)

Fuck that fact that Mr. October had a .278/.358/.527 (.885 OPS) career postseason triple slash line. Double fuck the fact that Tim McCarver bases his view of life on Batting Average, which only makes the unclutchiness argument even more bizarre.

God, life is strange.

Also, if Joe Buck mentioned Reggie Willits one more time in last night's Yankees-Angels broadcast, I think I would have thrown a shoe at the TV.

Tim McCarver hates statisctics...statisticians

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck were back at it again, making sure the baseball enthused youth of America know that statistics are evil. And no conversation about the overratedness of numbers can exclude the underratedness of Derek Jeter. McCarver points out that by every statistical measurement, Jeter rates out as the worst defensive shortstop in the major leagues.

You wont find a single person to say that now. All those people with the numbers are hiding in a cave, under a rock, somewhere.

He forgot to mention their mothers basement, too. Then Joe Buck added on, saying any scout that watches Jeter play a single game wouldnt pick any other shortstop to get a ball hit to them in the 7th game of a world series. Huh, let us just forget that the season is 162 games long, plus another 15 or so in the playoffs. Defense in those game does not matter. Only the 7th game of the WS matters. Yeah Joe Buck, these novel baseball fans are retards. Lets set them straight!

*Update* Derek Jeter committed an error in the 8th inning of a playoff game and followed that with a strike out in the bottom of the same inning. But it wasnt the 7th game of the world series so it doesnt really count.

*Update* Since I initially finished this post, there have been 2 more interesting Derek Jeter references. On a single to right, Jeter went from 1st to 3rd. McCarver mentioned that Abreu got the ball back into the infield fast because he knew Jeter was running the bases. Yep, cause if it was anyone else, Abreu would have jerked off first, and then got the ball back into the infield, cause no one would have the inclination to score outside of Derek Jeter. Second reference was on a ground ball to shortstop. Slo-mo showed that Jeter looked at the runner going to 3rd on the play before throwing to first to make sure he didnt try to score. Because of that, McCarver compared Jeter's vision to that of Larry Bird. Bird is a top 5 basketball player of all time. Possibly the best shooter ever. Jeter is neither, but he has won 4 rings! Yogi Berra won 10 championships, whats your fucking point

I hate you Tim McCarver. Could you please go away and never come back

Love,
TBO

Derek Jeter Gets Onionized

Check out this hilarious piece written by The Onion: Derek Jeter honored for having fewer hits than Harold Baines.

Quality journalism.

Troy Tulowitzki is the next Derek Jeter

My love for Tulo is undeniable. I coveted him in the GOI fantasy pay league draft getting him in the 5th round. After a terribly slow start, I finally dropped him in June because he was hitting in the low .200 and peer pressure from people in the league. I did replace him with Ben Zobrist, but it was never the same. Losing Tulo from my team was like the Cubs losing Wood and Derosa. The leadership, the intangibles, the clutchiness was gone from my team and it was never the same.

Tulo is a true leader on the baseball field and backs it up with great hitting, a decent glove at short, and tremendous knowledge of the game. His 2 full years in the bigs(2007 and 2009) the Rocks have gone to the playoffs, something they had only done once before the Tulo era. I will go as far as to say that he should be the NL MVP this season. Sure Pujols has superior stats, but look at the second half performance of each player. Tulo is OPSing 1.040 since the break leading his team on an amazing 17 of 18 winning streak and a chance to win the NL West. 32 homers, 20 steals, 102 runs, 92 RBI, above average SS, and 73 walks.

I'm starting to think that Baseball Prospectus kinda sucks at predicting things. This being my first day looking at their advanced statistics, I have seen many inconsistencies in the predictive abilities of the system. None of the breakout stars this year were predicted by BP. They had Tulo forcasted at no more than 18 homers in the next 7 years. Given his 32 bombs this year, and a 415 foot home run average, that prediction seems very conservative.

You can bet your savings that I will have Tulo on my team next year, the whole year, cause my predictive abilities tell me that Tulo at just 24 years old is the next big thing. 15 years from now, we may get nauseous at ESPN continually rubbing off Troy Tulowitzki

ESPN Fancast is broken

Do you remember earlier this, when I highlighted a Baltimore Sun article about that claimed the Orioles wanted t share players with the Cardinals? Guess they chose the Yankees instead.

(In case you didn't notice, Fancast says that Jeter struck out for the Orioles and that Johnny Damon is facing C.C. Sabathia)

Steve Phillips is making my ears bleed: part 2

My jaw just literally dropped from listening to what Steve Phillips just said while broadcasting the Mets/Reds game. I couldnt believe how he just kept going deeper and deeper into his imaginary universe. Luckily i'm tivoing the game so i can transcribe exactly what he said.

SP: Judgements are the most important factors in baseball. There's a system out there that rated Derek Jeter the worst SS in baseball. His range is much less than it was before, but i dont think he's the worst SS in baseball. There's a system that says Chase utley is the best 2B in baseball. I think he's good, but i dont think he;s the best 2B in baseball. He's good but he's no the best. Because the statistics dont match what my eye say, it makes me doubt the veracity of any of the numbers that are part of their system.

DS: So you chose your eyes over the stats.

SP: Yeah, i do. But scouts do. It's like reputation and defense dont always walk in sync with each other...There are certain players that are number accumulators they find themselves in situations to pick up that rbi up or down 3 runs

I dont think i need to FJM this crap. It's pretty self explanatory. Steve Phillips thinks that his eye is better at accumulating/condensing/rating the defensive capabilities of every baseball player in the entire league than an excel spreadsheet on a computer. He then contradicts himself by saying sometimes reputation leads people to believe things that are not true. Which obviously Phillips has done himself with Derek Jeter. He believes Jeter is awesome defensively cause of his reputation, fuck the statistics. What good have they every done for anyone.

Even if the 'eye' is better at judging players than spreadsheets, it definitely isn't Steve Phillip's 'eye' that should be doing the evaluating. Heck, he was the one who didn't 'see' that Mo Vaughn was 350 pounds when he decided to give him a garbage truck full for benjamins.

Also, who needs those guys that accumulate meaningless stats like home runs and rbi's. I'd rather have ronny cedeno who has one big grand slam against the phillies as opposed to the meaningless 110 rbi's Aramis Ramirez accumulated over the entire season. Boy does he suck!

Miller to Morgan to Phillips. Triple play!

I wonder if fire joe morgan would have shut down their site if they knew steve phillips would be added to the sunday night baseball broadcast. He increases the stupidity of that telecast exponentially, such that funzies will be had all year long. Tonight was just the beginning as the new triple play combo(yeah that's my knew name for them) teamed up to call the semifinal WBC game between Japan and the US. Japan won and will face S. Korea for the championship, but Darvish will not be pitching tomorrow night cause the manager decided he's rather have Darvish close a 5 run lead in the 9th as opposed to start in the championship game.

There was one hilarious quote from Joe Morgan in the 9th inning. Miller was telling a story where Jimmy Rollins joked to Derek Jeter that Jeter never steals any bases. Morgan came out to defende the all mighty Derek Jeter by saying that

"Jeter used to steal much more in his younger days, but only in clutch situation"

Once again proving that Jeter is captain clutch. Everything this guy does is clutch. Even his outs have a strategic clutchness to them that only Jeter can comprehend. The reason Jeter hasn't won a championship since 2000 is because he has been lulling the competition into a false sense of security until he can clutch up for a 5th title.

Derek Jeter's half whiteness is better than your full whiteness

So the WBC has proven to be a highly skilled competition with unexpectedly good showings from Korea, the Netherlands, and even the US, but the broadcasting has been god awful. Rick Sutcliffe sounds like he's permanently drunk, with all the love and nostalgia he's been uttering the past week. I'm going to try to recap some of the bullshit i have heared recently.

1) On a sac fly by brian mccann, sutcliff honestly believed that the reason mccann went the other way to avoid a potential double play was because he had taken batting practice with derek jeter. See brian mccann knows nothing about the game of baseball, it's not like he's a 2 time all star or has a career 122 OPS+ as a catcher. He magically learned how to play the 'right way' by watching derek jeter perfect the opposite field flyout. Magic!

2) Today, sutcliffe brought up bobby abreu's reputation as a les a faire player. you know, boring stuff like running the count, walking, stealing bases at 80%, scoring and driving in 100 runs. boring stuff like that. He then reminded us all of the great derek jeter and when he went face first into a second row chair. No one remembers hideki matsui going face first into a comiskey seat. stucliffe then went on to name some random guys who he considers grindy grinders who play baseball the right way. The list included jeter, youkilis, pedroia, chipper jones.

Hence, my conclusion that only white guys are allowed to be grinders. Jeter's mom is white, and the mitochondria is only passed on by the mom, believe me, so jeter's motor is white. To recap, latin players are lazy bitches. White guys grind and win championships. Fuck Ryan Howard

3) Sutcliffe's partner, dave o'brien, brought up the JP Ricchiardi situation from last year when he basically called Adam Dunn a lazy fuck who didnt try and doesnt like baseball. He apparently hits 40 homers a year out of spite for the game. Instead of mentioning these little details, o'brien said the controversy between dunn and JP was mainly due dunn's strike out totals. Who is o'brien trying to protect by leaving out the part where Ricchiardi dissed dunn's entire career. He's obviously protecting ESPN and the WBC. Good thing he didnt bring up baseballs steroid era, cause he probably would have called it the flinstone vitamin era to save face.

4) Sutcliffe, in his drunked state, decided to entertain himself by rattling off wierd and unusual baseball injuries, something we love here at GOI. The only problem is that he got them all wrong. Most notably, he tried to remember why Joel Zumaya had to miss most of the past 2 seasons. Sutcliffe thought it was because he was carrying meat of some sort. No that would be Clint Barmes. Zumaya got hurt by excessively playing Guitar Hero till his forearm muscle died.

I know i'm supposed to be eternally grateful for sutcliffe's 16-1 record and cy young he won for the cubs in 1984, but it's not worth a lifetime of brain dead baseball announcing

What Does Derek Jeter Do When He's Not Playing Baseball?

He teams up with Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Kevin Garnett to fuck your shit up with the power of Gatorade, Monty Python style.

Clutch Factor (Part 2)

Below is an 8 year analysis of 10 player's "Clutch" rating, courtesy of Fangraphs. I've provided a raw, unadjusted 8 year total, a weighted career total (which adjusts the cumulative total to be proportional to PA/Season) and a postseason Clutch cumulative total to bench mark overall performance.





As should be relatively obvious from the data of these notoriously "clutch" players, the ability to be "clutch" from year to year is highly variable. There seems to be little, if any consistency from one-year to the next. Having looked at much data on Fangraphs, I found that across most player's careers, their cumulative weighted Clutch factor oscillated somewhere around 0 -- this, of course, seems to indicate that as a player's sample size of clutch-situation AB's increases, that player's performance numbers in such situations converges to reflect their average career performance.

However, there were several notable exceptions to this trend, a few of which are documented here.

The big name on the list is A-Rod, who over the course of his career has been incredulously unclutch. Throughout his career, his clutch-situation numbers have been consistently lower than his overall performance numbers. There is a clear statistical trend that seems to point to A-Rod being unable, for whatever reason, to perform well in clutch situations. The reason could be anything from simple sample size to simple psychological factors. Regardless of the cause, a trend does exist; you might even say that booing him has some statistical justification.

On the other end of the spectrum are Beltran, Ortiz and Captain Clutch himself, Derek Jeter. Each of these players have accumulated slightly positive clutch numbers over the course of their careers. Each has arguable statistically earned their label as "clutch players", even if it has been a byproduct of situational luck rather than skill.

Speaking of situational luck vs skill, it would seem that the former is most likely the cause of "clutchiness", as most player's weighted cumulative career clutch numbers fail to translate in the post season. Excluding Ryan Howard, of the remaining 9 players listed here, there is much variability between post season play and career averages. If clutchiness was truly a skill rather than a byproduct of situational luck, you would imagine more consistency between the two figures.

(also, Jermaine Dye -- whose numbers I didn't include is this analysis -- has a cumulative career clutch factor of -8.33, almost as bad as A-Rod!)