106 thoughts on “January 9, 2012: So Close, So Far”

    1. Hee hee. He overcompensated with the second "I'm just kidding," and clearly knew he may have said the wrong thing, but yeah...I think Kevin Love is just the best.

    2. Ricky's 14 assists tied the single game record for any player after eight games in his career. John Stockton and Magic Johnson each failed to reach 14 assists in a game until their second season. Imagine if he were playing starter's minutes and on a team with a shooting guard.

      1. Rubio might hit the rookie wall at some point, or maybe have a sophomore slump, but for right now I am very impressed with him.

    1. Thanks wattsy - probably this was nothing "new" for die-hards but a fun read for us occasional viewers.

  3. I made tostones for the first time last night, to go with black beans and pork tacos. My technique needs some work. The turned out a bit dry.

    1. But garlic mojo sauce rocks. 8 cloves of garlic smushe to a paste with salt, mixed with the juice of one Orange and half a lime. Spoon over the tostones.

        1. salty, garlicky goodness. I also grated orange zest in for added citrus punch. The tostones soaked the sauce right up.

  4. Note the date: Mark Stein's weekly power rankings came out today and the Wolves are in the top half of the league (just barely at #15, but still).

  5. 20 Minutes until Baseball HOF announcements. Who thinks Jack Morris makes it? (not whether he deserves it. Will he). I am saying close but no he doesn't make it.

    1. That's the current opinion of many others. He has 2013 as well, but the ballot will be so loaded that he has little chance.

    3. I hope that Barry Larkin gets in. That might give hope to Alan Trammell.

      Also, Bagwell and Raines.

  6. No Morris, Larkin in with 86%. Not sure what Black Jack's total was.

    EDIT, it was 67% which is good movement, but as discussed, next year is a killer with lots of good candidates.

    3. Here is vote totals.

      Barry Larkin 495 (86.4%)
      Jack Morris 382 (66.7%)
      Jeff Bagwell 321 (56.0%)
      Lee Smith 290 (50.6%)
      Tim Raines 279 (48.7%)
      Alan Trammell 211 (36.8%)
      Edgar Martinez 209 (36.5%)
      Fred McGriff 137 (23.9%)
      Larry Walker 131 (22.9%)
      Mark McGwire 112 (19.5%)
      Don Mattingly 102 (17.8%)
      Dale Murphy 83 (14.5%)
      Rafael Palmeiro 72 (12.6%)
      Bernie Williams 55 (9.6%)
      Juan Gonzalez 23 (4.0%)
      Vinny Castilla 6 (1.0%)
      Tim Salmon 5 (0.9%)
      Bill Mueller 4 (0.7%)
      Brad Radke 2 (0.3%)
      Javy Lopez 1 (0.2%)
      Eric Young 1 (0.2%)
      Jeromy Burnitz 0 (0%)
      Brian Jordan 0 (0%)
      T Mulholland 0 (0%)
      Phil Nevin 0 (0%)
      Ruben Sierra 0 (0%)
      Tony Womack 0 (0%)

      2. That's a good bump for Raines. Edgar can't seem to gain traction (he'll probably have to go the Blyleven route if he makes it, but with some loaded classes coming up, I'm wondering if he'll stay on the ballot.) Decent bump for Trammell, too. Hard to say if those bumps will stick considering the weak class this year.

        Good to see Larkin make it, I think he was deserving.

        1. Is there a list somewhere of players who managed to stay on the ballot all 15 years without getting elected (or only elected by the Senior Committee later)?? Maintaining 5+ percent all those years is a feat in and of itself.

          1. Hmmm... I can't find one off hand. I find this intriguing, too, so I will start a list here:

            At risk for 2013: Dale Murphy
            2012: None
            2011: Dave Parker (15.3%)
            2010: None
            2009: Tommy John (31.7%)
            2008: Dave Concepcion (16.2%)
            2007: Steve Garvey (21.1%)
            2006: None
            2005: None
            2004: None
            2003: Jim Kaat (26.2%)
            2002: Luis Tiant (18.0%)
            2001: None
            2000: None
            1999: Minnie Minoso (14.7%), Mickey Lolich (5.2%)
            1998: Ron Santo (43.1%)
            1997: Joe Torre (22.2%)
            1996: Tony Oliva (36.2%), Curt Flood (15.1%), Vada Pinson (10.9%)
            1995: Thurman Munson (6.5%)
            1994: Orlando Cepeda (73.5%), Ken Boyer (11.8%)
            1993: None
            1992: Bill Mazeroski (42.3%), Maury Wills (25.6%)
            1991: Jim Bunning (63.7%), Harvey Kuenn (22.6%)
            1990: Roy Face (11.3%)
            1989: None
            1988: Roger Maris (43.1%), Elston Howard (12.4%), Don Larsen (7.3%)

            That's 24 guys in the last 25 ballots who've made it 15 years without getting 75%. It seems many of them were picked up by the Veterans Committee. If anyone wants to keep going, you could start here.

      3. This is kind of interesting...well, it was interesting to me anyway.

        Ken Rosenthal said he has not voted for Morris, but added that 66.7 percent gets him so close that many will think harder about it next time.
        "You start to wonder, am I going to be the only guy keeping this guy out?" Rosenthal said on the broadcast. "That's a weighty thing for a lot of people. It forces me, and others certainly, to reconsider."

        1. That seems like a poorly thought-out position to me. If a player only has 74.9% of the vote, then 25.1% of the voters are keeping him out of the Hall. No one vote ever keeps a player out. It probably speaks accurately to the self-important manner in which BBWAA members view their HOF votes, but it's bad math.

  7. things that confuse me (from Gleeman today):

    According to Fan Graphs pitch values Willingham was 44 runs above average versus fastballs from 2009-2011, compared to four runs below average versus fastballs for Cuddyer during that time. Cuddyer was more effective than Willingham against sliders, curveballs, changeups, and cutters, doing most of his damage versus off-speed stuff.

    Really? Cuddy was (relatively) MORE effective against sliders than fastballs? Huh. I guess the data doesn't lie. But it sure seems like a fibber.

    1. I'm guessing he crushed hanging breaking stuff. I assume the data doesn't differentiate between a good curveball and a meatball.

    2. I think the major takeaway from that is that Willingham is much more selective on the pitches he swings at.

      1. • Cuddyer swung at 17 percent more pitches than Willingham from 2009-2011, which includes swinging at 65 percent more pitches outside the strike zone.

        From the same article, so yeah, Hammy is much more selective.

    3. Anecdotally, I would say that fans are in general too hard on hitters for not being able to hit low and away sliders. Dozens and dozens of right-handed hitters struggle against the low-and-away slider. Manny is on record saying it is the hardest pitch for a right-handed hitter to hit (and used to have someone set up a pitching machine to throw him low and away sliders over and over.) I'd guess that the bar for performance vs. breaking pitches is pretty low.

      Also, I haven't really taken these stats that seriously because they don't make a lot of sense to me. In particular, do they adjust for the count in which the pitch was thrown? How much credit does a hitter get for laying off an off-speed pitch outside the strike zone? (If any--it's unclear to me that a pitch which moves the count from 1-0 to 2-0 is included at all in this split.) Is a hitter marked down for swinging at an off-speed pitch out of the zone to move his count from 0-1 to 0-2? It's a little bit like the issues I have with splits like hitting from a 2-0 count or hitting from a 2-1 count, etc., where only pitches that end the plate appearance are included in the stat line.

      Anyway, Willingham has 4.07 pitches seen per PA compared to Cuddyer's 3.83 pitches seen per PA. Based on their walk rates, it seems likely to me that Willingham works himself into more hitter's counts than Cuddyer, so when he does offer at a fastball, it's more likely to be in, say, a 2-0 count, and a 2-0 fastball's gotta be easier to hit than, say, an 0-1 fastball.

      Looking at their pitch type breakdown, I think that it's probably likely that Willingham is better than Cuddyer at hitting fastballs, since Cuddyer sees more fastballs as a percentage of pitches seen. But I guess I'm unconvinced that Cuddyer's better at dealing with off-speed pitches.

    4. To me, Cuddyer was always a big-time guess hitter, which is why he could looks so bad at times because he just guessed wrong, but he also could take difficult pitches and put good swings on them when he guessed right. I do remember Gardy and even other coaches talking about how well Cuddyer can hit fastballs, but I would think he would have to be looking for a fastball to hit it well.

      1. Dazzle always mentioned Cuddy was a great fastball hitter whenever he was up in a late inning-runner on base situation

  8. I just realized that I'm okay with Morris getting in whenever he finally does, and that I'm, in fact, a 'large hall' guy. I don't know what to think about that.

    2. I also don't have a problem with Morris being a Hall of Famer. He's down the list for me, but it's the Hall of Fame and he has a good claim.

      1. This speaks to my ignorance about the history of the HOF, but it is odd that baseball has a Hall of Fame and not a Hall of Greatness or Hall of the Best or something like that. Of course, I suspect this has something to do with east coast bias. 🙂

    3. I'm not exactly going to storm the Bastille Hall if he does, but I'd still prefer he didn't, although since Blyleven got in I don't think I care as much as I used to. With the massive amount of no-doubters and huge controversies coming up in the next few years, though, I'm not yet ready to call Morris getting in a matter of "when".

      1. Well, neither am I, I guess, I'm more upset when deserving people don't get in than when semi-deserving people do get in. For example, Tim Raines isn't in the HoF. That bothers me a lot more than if Morris squeaks in based on questionable merits.

  9. Just heard Soucheray tell Reusse that he wouldn't vote for Bonds or Clemens if he had a vote. Of course. Reusse sidestepped that except to say that Bonds and Clemens had made a case before 'roids and that Sosa ain't getting in, but he did say he'd vote for Biggio and bloody sock, but not right away on bloody sock. Also, he thought Morris would get in next year. I find that hard to believe.

      1. Well, duh. Didn't he win 10 straight Cy Young's? I know I read something about him being the winningest pitcher of the decade. 😉

    2. With Maddox, Glavin, and Mussina (plus Frank Thomas) due up in 2014, if Morris doesn't get in next year he's not going to make it.

      1. Even next year, he could have loads of trouble: Bonds and Clemens are going to get votes and they'll also probably induce some no-vote protest ballots. After that, setting aside steroid speculation, Schilling, Biggio, Lofton, Sosa, and Piazza all arguably have cases at least as good as Morris. I'm not really up on how steroid speculation impacts each player, but there could be quite a few big Hall ballots that start getting crowded next year. (Not to metion David Wells, who arguably had a better career than Jack Morris, but won't get anything close to the support Morris enjoys.)

        A big Hall guy might have an imaginary line at, say, 55 rWAR. Next year's ballot has 14 players at 55+ rWAR, plus 6 players (McGriff, Bernie, Murphy, Mattingly, Morris, Smith) who don't meet that low bar and got at least 5% of the vote this year and will carry over to next year's ballot. Personally, I'm curious if there is going to be a hugely split vote with lots of players clocking in at 10-20% or if some guys with relatively good resumes are going to miss the cut.

        2. I'm tired of all the "Bernie Williams is a HOFer" articles the past few weeks; hopefully his vote % has stifled that. Just like Mattingly, put a NY on their hat and they're "no-doubters". Not looking forward to the Posada posts in a few years.

          2. I had managed to avoid all of those articles and was pretty surprised to see him pulling nearly 10% in the poll. I guess we know about how many BBWAA voters are based in NYC and/or Yankees fans.

  10. The power just came back on here after being out for about an hour for no apparent reason. Luckily, the high today was about 55 degrees rather than being like it usually is in January around here.

  11. Big Eddie and the Bison. Believe me when I tell you that Eddie was a legend when he called Bison games and those 1980s teams were damned good.

    I was at that 1990 Championship game in Florence, Alabama. In the third quarter, the Bison scored five touchdowns and missed all five extra points! The poor kicker hit both uprights. The Herd tacked on a seventh touchdown in the fourth quarter and they brought out a defensive lineman to kick the extra point. Good. 51-11 was the final, and it wasn't that close.

  13. Wolves start off slow tonight again- until Adelman puts in Rubio. Seems to be a theme. Also, Raptors color guy is annoying- it's not "Rid-i-nour", dammit!

    3. This is turning into quite a good game in Toronto. Our rebounding is a bit lackluster tonight, though.

    1. He's been terrible all game. His calls on the Toronto shot blocks are Hawk-Harrelson-horrible.

      1. yeah, i want to know which banner as well. if it's the one that's slipping spooky's mind, i know that i probably missed so many better ideas.

  24. an episode of Two and a Half Men might be more exciting than this college football game

      1. AMC is on the next tier of channels 🙁

        I would usually flip over to Turner Classic Movies, but Comcast just moved that channel to the next tier up from the package I have. dumb.

    2. I watched the first LSU/Alabama game and that was enough to keep me away from this one.

      edit: ZOMG, LSU had 92 yards of offense. Five field goals for Alabama! w00t! And two missed FGs! LOL!

  26. So, I was at the local discount store (Smart & Final) buying supplies for the wrestling booster snack bar, and what do I see on sale? This by the twelver for $13.

    1. In a semi-related bit I prefer BA moving to a number scoring system from the letters.

  27. I added something to allow people to use math notation for the small percentage that care. However, it seems it may cause some problems. If anyone gets a popup saying something about MathJax not being configured, let me know so I can disable it to stop the popups.

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