Cup of Coffee

August 16, 2012: King Felix

81 Comments

Of all the guys to throw a perfect game, Felix would have been my next choice. I watched it last night, and found myself cheering for each play like there was some sort of doubt. I love this game.

81 thoughts on “August 16, 2012: King Felix”

    1. Too brief to really tell, but from those excerpts I'd say it doesn't seem like Posnanski is overly sympathizing Paterno.

      2. wow...it may be out of context, but when your first comment is how your name is affected and not the kids, there's something seriously perverse about you

        1. Exactly. Posnanski doesn't seem to be providing any commentary, but what he's recording is so blatantly out of line with what should be that commentary is pretty much superfluous.

        2. It's ironic that his obsession with how he will be remembered is what caused him to be remembered for this.

  2. So to revisit the BSG complaints from the other day...

    Spoiler SelectShow
    1. Spoiler SelectShow

      1. Yeah, weasels usually have interesting story arcs. But they're usually painful to watch.

        1. I totally disagree with that second part. However, yeah, his early stuff is tedious. I feel like the writers knew what they were going to do with him later on, but had no idea how to kill time with him at first.

  3. With Melky Cabrera's suspension yesterday, he ends the season with a .346 batting average and 501 PAs. McCutchen leads the NL with a .358 batting average, but it remains to be seen if he can keep it above .34565. Cabrera could end up winning the NL batting title.

          1. Strange cat.

            what do you mean, "strange"?

            httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iV4NwSbscg

            (i friggin' love this video...)

            1. Nice. When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

              (And I suppose it does seem a bit like the pot calling the kettle black coming from the guy who pasted the head of an MLB skipper atop a cut-out Beelzebub.)

            2. A friend of mine booked him a couple of years ago-- his rider? One apple and a bottle of Kettle One.

          1. I hadn't realized that Melky was so close to reaching the qualifying level for PA. He's what, one or two short, which means they just backfill with non-hit ABs, right?

            2. Adding to Rhu_Ru; he's one PA short. Adding the one out necessary to get him to 502 PA leads to the .34565 batting average I quoted above.

              1. I think the official stance is at the end of the year he still has to have the necessary PAs to qualify. B-R and others add the extra PAs when a player is close to qualifying during the year for leaderboards so fans will know where someone will be approximately when they do get enough PAs.

                1. That is not how I read the rulebook.

                  10.22
                  (a) ... Notwithstanding the foregoing requirement of minimum appearances at the plate, any player with fewer than the required number of plate appearances whose average would be the highest, if he were charged with the required number of plate appearances shall be awarded the batting, slugging or on-base percentage championship, as the case may be.

                  Rule 10.22(a) Comment:
                  ...
                  If, for example, Abel has the highest batting average among those with 502 plate appearance in a Major League with a .362 batting average (181 hits in 500 at-bats), and Baker has 490 plate appearances, 440 at-bats and 165 hits for a .375 batting average, Baker shall be the batting champion, because adding 12 more at-bats to Baker's record would still give Baker a higher batting average than Abel: .365 (165 hits in 452 at-bats) to Abel's .362.

                2. I haven't looked it up, but in the '84-'87 time frame, someone had a near-.400 batting average but became injured (Gwynn?) and either the rule was decided then or "made public" at that time. wish I remembered the exact circumstances

                  1. from the Repository:

                    From 1967 to the present, if the player with the highest average in a league fails to meet the minimum plate-appearance requirement, the remaining at-bats until qualification (e.g., 5 ABs, if the player finished the season with 497 plate appearances) are hypothetically considered hitless at-bats; if his recalculated batting average still tops the league, he is awarded the title. (This policy was invoked in 1981, securing Bill Madlock his third NL batting crown, and in 1996, when NL titlist Tony Gwynn finished the year with only 498 PAs.)

                  2. btw, I searched 1983-1988 for an example of someone with 450+ PA and a very high BA. No soap. So I'm guessing you were thinking of Gwynn in 1994 (.393, 475 PA in the strike-shortened season)?

                    for a minimum of 350 PA:
                    1982, Boggs had a .349 in 381 PA (highest average in the Majors, not discounting to qualifying)
                    1984, Dazz had a .351 in 384 PA with the Gigantes (Gwynn won the NL batting title with a fractionally higher .351 BA)
                    1989, Barry Larkin had a .342 average in 357 PA (highest average in the Majors, not discounting to qualifying)
                    1990, Luis Polonia had a .335 average in 436 PA (highest average in the Majors, not discounting)

                    1. Nope, it was while I was in LA, '84-'90 seasons, I'm pretty sure.

                      Guess it might have been Gwynn's '88 season, where he was injured early but was pushing for the NL league lead later on.

  4. Joe Posnanski on no-hitters, etc. Good stuff overall. Eventually he gets to discussing theories for why there have been so many perfect games lately. Supposing that it's not just a statistical anamoly, I think he overlooks the most obvious theory: 12- and 13-man pitching staffs. If you're looking for a hit late in the game, that third lefty out of the bullpen is of no use to you.

    It used to be that the big requirement for being a closer (other than having balls of steel and all that) was that you needed to have pretty low platoon splits because in the ninth, a manager could empty his bench and get as much platoon advantage as he wanted. That's not as much the case these days, though, especially if you have a team with 13 pitchers, playing in a DH league, with a backup catcher that they are keeping on the bench for "emergency" purposes.

    1. I also found his replay discussion somewhat enlightening. Having read that, I think that I've mainly been against replay because I just don't think it's that important to get the call right. That no matter how many people are watching, a game is just a game, and deciding the winner is not so important that we have to do everything in our power to make sure that the games are officiated correctly to the micrometer.

      1. I agree with you. I absolutely hate the NFL replay rules. They might get the call right, but they take so long that I have lost interest by the time they have.

        I think reply should be done in 30 seconds. If it isn't obviously wrong within 30 seconds of seeing the replay, the call stands.

        1. Strong emphasis on might here. Nothing drives me more crazy watching an NFL game than a replay delay, and then they obviously get the call wrong. Ugh.

      2. I don't disagree that it's just a game, especially during the regular season when those things tend to be fairly evenly distributed. But during the playoffs, when small sample size comes into play and there is large money riding on outcomes for many stakeholders, I'd like to see the chances of a blatant human error reduced as much as possible, and we now have technology to do that in many cases. I don't know about you, but if I'm standing at first base I can't always tell if a little three-inch diameter baseball some 300 feet away, moving a hundred miles per hour and possibly slicing one way or another, went just to the right or just to the left of a foul pole.

        1. When I am philosophical and detached about it (as opposed to when I have my fan cap on and the Twins are playing), I have a hard time getting worked up over a lot of close calls. Hitters don't have the ability to hit a ball just inside the foul pole any more than pitchers have the ability to keep the ball just foul. Yes, the impact of the call is big, but neither player put himself in a good position to make the call go his way.

          I feel differently about calls that go obviously, horribly wrong. In those cases, it should be pretty obvious, and I tend to agree with Algonad that if the call is so obviously wrong that you can tell in 30 seconds, then go ahead and overturn it. I believe that MLB is experimenting with having what amounts to a television umpire watching each game next year, and provided that the TV ump gives quick feedback to the umpires on the field, that seems like it could be a reasonable improvement.

          Where I seem to differ from Horby's opinion is that I would be completely fine if umpire foul-ups are eliminated. I don't think they are an important part of the game and one of the reasons I dislike replay is that the officials get so much attention in the narrative of the game that calling the game correctly seems to be as important as playing the game, which I think is a poor way to present the game. One of the things I enjoy about watching sports in person these days is that without replay, it makes it harder to dwell on any one or two events and you are more apt to take a step back and consider the bigger picture.

    2. If larger benches helped in previous decades to end perfect games/no-hitters, then I'm guessing more games in the past would be broken up in the last one or two innings than now. A study on that could be interesting, but the sample size might be too small.

      1. Bench depth is not just important late in games, though. The short benches prevent teams from carrying position player platoons, so they can't match up against starting pitchers with big platoon splits.

        It does seem like something you could test, but it'd be hard to do.

      2. I am also sure strikeouts helps quite a bit. If you were facing a team of nine Juan Pierres, a perfect game would be highly unlikely, even if winning the game was still very easy.

        1. What about dilution of talent? With more teams and larger rosters, your better pitchers are now facing less daunting batters. 'course, that doesn't explain Phillip Humber, among other things.

          1. but one could argue the talent was diluted during the long perfect game drought due to the game being predominantly white

            1. to the question of talent dilution writ large, these are trying times for U.S. baseball:

              From 2000 to 2009, the latest year for which figures are available, the number of kids aged 7 to 17 playing baseball fell 24%, according to the National Sporting Goods Association, an industry trade group. Despite growing concerns about the long-term effects of concussions, participation in youth tackle football has soared 21% over the same time span, while ice hockey jumped 38%. The Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association, another industry trade group, said baseball participation fell 12.7% for the overall population.

              the flip side is (I think) that MLB has become much more aggressive and adept at recruiting/scouting talent outside of the U.S.

              1. as far as perfect games go, does it really matter? If there are fewer people playing baseball, one could assume if players are worse it would be equal among pitching and hitting

                1. perfect games are about as random of events as they come -- monkeys on typewriters. So, no, I don't think that talent dilution has anything to do with the numbers we observe at the MLB level. The noise absolutely swamps any conceivable, systemic effects that there might be from talent drains.

                  1. where I was really going was a more general point about the future of the sport.
                    from the same article I quoted above:

                    According to scouts, the declining numbers are beginning to alter the talent pool in ways that could have a noticeable impact on player quality. "There are still players, but there aren't the numbers out there anymore," said David Bloom, a scout with the Baltimore Orioles. "The great players just don't stand out like they used to."

                    Tim Brosnan, an executive vice-president for Major League Baseball, said the recent gloomy studies have prompted the league to order up its own research, which is ongoing, and to review the league's efforts to grow the game. Since 1989, baseball has spent more than $50 million building and renovating fields and creating baseball leagues, especially in urban areas where kids have been abandoning the sport. It has also opened youth training academies in California and Texas to teach all aspects of the game—even umpiring. "We know if you play as a kid you over-index in your propensity to become a fan," Brosnan said. "That's our core right there, so any decline in it is going to get our absolute and full attention."

                    At the high school level, baseball has held steady with about 15,786 programs in the U.S.—a number that ranks it No. 3 among all boys' sports. Youth sports officials say there's been a small decline in the number of teams, but largely because of funding cutbacks.

                    ...

                    Lou Warner, the principal of Tennessee-based Warner's Athletic, an athletic field construction company, said much of his municipal work these days involves converting the outfields in countless parks into multi-sport facilities for soccer, football and lacrosse use.

                    Studies suggest more people now play soccer in the U.S. than baseball, and lacrosse participation among kids has more than doubled in the last decade. The number of high school lacrosse programs has been growing by about 7% a year.

                    The point being that our beloved sport is in long-run decline. Fewer kids participating (and more of those who do are exclusively baseball players, a worrisome trend in its own right, IMO) means fewer kids locking in as fans. In another 25 or 30 years, baseball could be a minor sport in the U.S.

                    1. I appreciate the point that baseball's popularity is indeed waning, and decreased participation will have an impact on its popularity in the future, but I always cringe at designations of "major" and "minor." Even if baseball's popularity decreases by half in 30 years, that's still 35+ million tickets sold per season. I imagine there will still be a lot of money to be made there, and it'll likely still be the best baseball league in the world, so I don't think the level of competition will be that much of an issue.

                    2. There is no real direct competition with baseball from any sport, though. The pool of top-level athletes might diminish but the schedule is still opposite of other major sports and more importantly, the opportunity to spectate is afforded 81 times a year for home fans.

                    3. I don't understand the statement that "the great players just don't stand out like they used to." It seems like if the overall talent is weaker, the great players should stand out even more.

                  2. Let's try this again!

                    Alright, what now? I copied the embed link from youtube... it had the iframe stuff, then src=http://www.youtube.com/embed/blahblah, then then the close iframe. I changed the http to httpv... hit submit, and it comes up blank.

                    5. Correct. The share link also works and is often more convenient if there are extra parameters in the URL.

                    6. Yeah, I'd been using the embed code from the youtube "embed" button. That is not what you want to do (but it is what the directions here say to do). Now I know. And I shall post video as appropriate! Simpsons all around!

                    8. Those are the directions I followed.

                      "On the page for the video you wish to embed, click the "Embed" button and copy the link given."

                    9. Hmm, I wonder if the name had changed since I wrote those instructions.. Probably not, oops.

  5. For all of you punters out there: beware Circadian rhythms.

    I would presume that something similar would apply in baseball for West Coast teams beginning an East Coast swing against a team that had been on the East Coast for some days or weeks.

  6. On to home and then the Mrs. & I are going to see "Manos: Hands of Fate" done up by the Rifftrax guys in a live simulcast. Tomorrow heading north for nephews wedding. Does anybody know a good place to eat (ie good beer choices) in Owatonna?

    2. I believe they have one of the only Quiznos in the area...

      Is the wedding in Owatonna/is that where the voyage ends?

        1. I'm heading to a wedding this weekend too, though not in Owatonna. Just figured I'd try for one of those "small world" moments.

    3. As bS implies, there's not a whole lot there. Torey's Restaurant is probably as good as that town gets.

      Or, just hit up the legendary Steele County Free Fair!

  7. Cc to Mags: the shoebox has arrived and everything is in tact. What's the best way to drink this stuff?

    1. What's the best way to drink this stuff?

      Carefully.

      Kidding, but it will take a little getting used to. It's meant to be taken as a digestive after dinner, sipped not shots.

        1. I mention the sipping because it's usually served in a shot glass-like glass at a restaurant and us non-Czechs misunderstood the first time we saw it. Pouring for yourself, I suppose it's up to you which glass. Wouldn't pour much more than a shot's worth. And don't chill it.

          1. Wow, that is an interesting, spicy taste. Its kind of a familiar taste but I can't quite put my ginger on it. Thanks, man.

            2. I can't quite put my ginger on it.

              Is this a thing? Or a typo? If it's a typo, it should totally be a thing. If it's a thing, why hasn't anyone told me?

  8. Who said it?

    "AJ is one of the smartest baseball players, maybe the smartest, certainly in the American League, and talking with Bob Brenly about it, probably in the National League as well."

    Spoiler SelectShow

Comments are closed.