It's a Maureen McGovern morning. I'm going to work, how 'bout you?
53 thoughts on “February 5, 2018: Aftermath”
Little known fact: the famous version of "The Morning After" (by Maureen McGovern) is not the film version (sung by Renee Armand). I did not know that. Which makes it little known.
Took one last Sanibel hike, finishing up the trails at SCC Nature Center. We did a solid and cleared out the spider webs.
MLB Win Simulator. Something I coded up last week. Pick a season (2000-2017 only right now), pick which win percentage estimate you want to use, the number of runs (1000 is ~2 s for me), and run. A view into the seasons that were generated using the team's win percentage will be displayed in the results page.
Some fun things that have been noted so far:
* 2017 Dodgers worst season tends to be above .500
* 2001 Mariners worst season is usually above 95 wins. Good team.
This is awesome, Sean. How far back is there public BaseRuns data?
It's "trivial" to calculate them so I did. My BaseRuns figures differ a small (<0.02 runs/game) from what FanGraphs has so I'm not sure what I'm doing differently. But, it's very small so not a huge deal.
I've always wanted my hands on a spreadsheet of BaseRuns for all teams in history so I can calculate 2nd order winning percentage (which BP only has going back about 40 years)
It's a bit harder going back because things like HBP or baserunning weren't tracked originally. I can adjust the calculation to account for missing stats like that and get you everything pretty easily.
That was fast. Do you mind having only the estimated winning percentage? I can get the estimated runs scored and allowed too, but it's going to take more time.
Eh, I'll do it anyway, but it's going to take a bit regardless.
That would be great, too!
Very cool. I've been meaning to become more familiar with TypeScript.
This is the first time I've ever used it. I like it. I've become more a fan of type systems of late, so TypeScript is a nice addition to that. The hardest part I think is that it needs to be compiled so you have to make decisions about your target and that affects what features you have available. That's true in JavaScript too, but here the compiler enforces it from the start.
My thoughts on the Super Bowl:
Philadelphia played to win the game. That was an epic performance by them. Tom Brady had over 500 yards passing and NE did not punt. But, they won. They won a shootout with their backup QB against Tom Brady. Herm Edwards must be proud.
You. Play. To. Win. The. Game.
Philadelphia played to win the game. ... You. Play. To. Win. The. Game.
Perhaps I don’t understand this statement because I didn’t watch the game, but don’t both teams play to win single-elimination playoff games in professional sports? Or did New England decide to just go through the motions this time? Was it fixed? It sounds like New England’s quarterback played to win the game. Or not?
I think we could say a team’s strategy to win the game was sub-optimal or unsuccessful, but it doesn’t sound like they didn’t play to win. Unless they didn’t. Or something. I dunno.
I would actually say there's a pretty sizable difference between "playing to win" and "playing not to lose".
I’m not sure I agree. If you think your best strategy to win is playing not to lose, are you not playing to win? It’s perhaps a careful, conventional strategy that might seem overly cautious or undynamic, but bold, vigorous play has its own drawbacks that somehow seem to evade characterization as not being focused on “playing to win.”
Not applicable here, but I think the problem is that some coaches play to not get fired.
Ayyup.
There are various arguments out there about coaches' risk aversion, such that they often fail to take win probability-maximizing choices. They go for it far too rarely on 4th down, for example.
Philly was extremely aggressive. Aggressive in their play calling -- they didn't try to protect Foles, they had him make plays: 44 pass plays called. They went for it on fourth and 1 twice, once in their own territory. They ran a trick play that they'd only practiced a few times. They got into a shootout with New England and they never flinched. Everytime NE pulled closer, they went out and took the fight to NE and prevailed. They didn't just try to run out the clock, they tried to keep scoring.
From Bill Barnwell:
Later, the Eagles would respond to a rare third-down stuff by the Patriots on a blown-up swing pass by going for it again on fourth-and-1, this time down a point on their own 45-yard line with 5:39 to go. In a situation in which teams almost always punt -- 42 of 47 times in roughly similar situations going back through 2007, by my count -- Pederson lined up to go for it, called timeout, then resisted the urge to give the ball back to Brady and called for mesh, a Chip Kelly crossing-route staple the Eagles repeatedly went to throughout the game. Foles found Zach Ertz for a key first down.
Pederson has been doing this all season. The Eagles are among the most analytically inclined teams in the league and have been for more than a decade, going back to the days of Andy Reid and Joe Banner. They converted 17 fourth downs during the regular season, which was tops in the league and the most of any team since the 2008 Patriots. Their successful fourth-and-goal try from the 1-yard line against the Falcons in the divisional round ended up as the margin of victory in a 15-10 win.
Indeed, ESPN's win expectancy metrics loved Pederson's aggressiveness. The fourth-down call on the goal line was worth 3.4 percentage points of win expectancy, while the less conventional fourth-and-1 in the fourth quarter was far more valuable and worth 7.3 percentage points of win expectancy even before the Eagles converted. Given that Philly came into the game with a 42 percent chance of winning, those two play calls alone might have swung the game Philadelphia's way.
Emphasis mine. This highlights two game-changing plays, plays where most teams don't do what Philly did. And they did it in the Super Bowl, where second guessing is going to be huge if they fail. But, beyond those two play calls, they had Foles pressuring and pressing the NE defense all night. Biggest game of their lives... and they played like they were cold blooded killers... like they were the team that had been there 8 times and were the prohibitive favorites. Set aside all the problems with football. This was, in my mind, one of the best performances in a Super Bowl as a team, ever.
My only strategic quibble was with the decision to go for a 2-point conversion on their second touchdown. They should have kicked at that point to go up by 13. That one missing point ended up affecting damn near the entire flow of the game.
It also meant that the FG at the end of the game didn't effectively end the game since the Eagles won by just one score (8 points) instead of 2 (9 points).
My thoughts on the Super Bowl:
We miss Prince more than we even expected*. I've heard Wolf Eyes' records with more musicality.
*It's a given that if Prince had survived, he would have had this halftime show, right?
This definitely would’ve been Prince’s show, yes.
Agreed. Nothing worse than watching a team punt on 4th and 1 when the other team has a good offense.
My thought on the Super Bowl is that it was a good game and an entertaining game, but not really a great game because there were few great plays. The Foles catch was memorable because it was a trick play, but it wasn't a great throw or a great catch. The sack/fumble on Brady near the end was big because of the situation, but no different from plays we see every game. Other than that, it was mostly quarterbacks with plenty of time to throw hitting open receivers. One could say that the offensive lines did a great job, but it's not like that's going to be on a highlight reel. But again, it was a good, entertaining game, and maybe that's enough.
For all the passing, it did seem pretty routine.
Yea, the defenses on both sides were pretty bad (after the first quarter).
Second thought: with all those missed kicks, I doubt they'll play another superbowl in an indoor stadium anytime soon.
Philadelphia certainly made it seem like a certain quarterback from North Dakota may have been a little overrated.
SBG sniffs the bait and then swims the other way.
Are you sure? There's a lot of chum there!
I’m dreading this work shift. Monday is usually a drag as it is, but today’s best case scenario is that we don’t take back too many Super Bowl rentals.
I've been thinking of getting a tv for our bedroom with tax return money. Might have to swing by the local Blue Box and see what kind of open items there are. I'm guessing most of those Super Bowl returns are probably bigger than 40-43 inches, though, yeah?
Yes, but you’ll probably have a good selection regardless. We always get a ton of returns after the Christmas season and struggle with them for months.
I should stop by.
Stopped in at Lee County complex to inhale some Twins spring training. Wandered a bit, then had a nice visit with the attendent in the Twins shop.
Back from urgent care, and Elder Daughter has been confirmed with the flu (she didn't get the shot this year). Too far along for Tamiflu, they gave her some Tussin with codeine and told her to rub dirt on it. She started her job last week, worked three days and has now been out sick three days. She got sick on the last day I had my work insurance because she's getting her own policy from her new job and the rest of us are going on a family plan through Mrs. Twayn's job, only Elder Daughter hasn't been able to enroll for benefits yet because they didn't have her accounts set up last week, so effectively she had no coverage today. I had to pay $100 down and depending on labs (they did a chest x-ray) the cash cost for this visit could be as high as $580. We're hoping her insurance coverage will be backdated to her start date, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Sounds like there are some nasty strains of flu out there. She is in our prayers.
I'm always shocked when I learn that people are covered by insurance right away when starting a job and not 90 days later like it was in Texas. Gotta make damn sure you're not taking a job just to get the sweet, sweet deductibles (and other very FZ things).
and I hope your daughter gets better soon. This flu season seems to be pretty awful.
R. I. P. John Mahoney, who among other things played Frazier Crane's father on Frazier, at age seventy-seven.
was just coming here to say the same. That was a great role, on a great show.
A baseball connection: he famously played Black Sox manager Kid Gleason in Eight Men Out.
I had no idea he was from England. I always figured he was an Irish guy from Chicago.
So when Frasier started he was 53. Just 15 years older than Grammer.
Yes, when I first saw he died at 77, it struck me that he must have been much younger than he looked on Frasier.
He was also in Say Anything.
The Iron Giant always gets overlooked, but in this particular company it's especially weak:
voicing animated characters in the “Antz” and “Atlantis” films.
RIP
What? Antz is my favorite Woody Allen kids' movie.
My fav was The Hudsucker Proxy
on tarmac at DEN. cabin door is mysteriously reopened. flight attendant looks outside, walks away. head flight attendant comes up and looks outside, walks away (ambulance with cherries going flying by outside on tarmac!?) . PILOT comes back, looks outside for a time, emotionless. walks back to cockpit.
diagnosis: improperly deployed emergency exit slide. it was a perplexing few moments as an uninformed passenger.
Little known fact: the famous version of "The Morning After" (by Maureen McGovern) is not the film version (sung by Renee Armand). I did not know that. Which makes it little known.
Took one last Sanibel hike, finishing up the trails at SCC Nature Center. We did a solid and cleared out the spider webs.
MLB Win Simulator. Something I coded up last week. Pick a season (2000-2017 only right now), pick which win percentage estimate you want to use, the number of runs (1000 is ~2 s for me), and run. A view into the seasons that were generated using the team's win percentage will be displayed in the results page.
Some fun things that have been noted so far:
* 2017 Dodgers worst season tends to be above .500
* 2001 Mariners worst season is usually above 95 wins. Good team.
This is awesome, Sean. How far back is there public BaseRuns data?
It's "trivial" to calculate them so I did. My BaseRuns figures differ a small (<0.02 runs/game) from what FanGraphs has so I'm not sure what I'm doing differently. But, it's very small so not a huge deal.
I've always wanted my hands on a spreadsheet of BaseRuns for all teams in history so I can calculate 2nd order winning percentage (which BP only has going back about 40 years)
It's a bit harder going back because things like HBP or baserunning weren't tracked originally. I can adjust the calculation to account for missing stats like that and get you everything pretty easily.
I would owe you a few solids.
I can get you data back to 1908. Before that, BaseRuns doesn't work.
Seriously made my day Sean.
That was fast. Do you mind having only the estimated winning percentage? I can get the estimated runs scored and allowed too, but it's going to take more time.
Eh, I'll do it anyway, but it's going to take a bit regardless.
That would be great, too!
Very cool. I've been meaning to become more familiar with TypeScript.
This is the first time I've ever used it. I like it. I've become more a fan of type systems of late, so TypeScript is a nice addition to that. The hardest part I think is that it needs to be compiled so you have to make decisions about your target and that affects what features you have available. That's true in JavaScript too, but here the compiler enforces it from the start.
My thoughts on the Super Bowl:
Philadelphia played to win the game. That was an epic performance by them. Tom Brady had over 500 yards passing and NE did not punt. But, they won. They won a shootout with their backup QB against Tom Brady. Herm Edwards must be proud.
You. Play. To. Win. The. Game.
Perhaps I don’t understand this statement because I didn’t watch the game, but don’t both teams play to win single-elimination playoff games in professional sports? Or did New England decide to just go through the motions this time? Was it fixed? It sounds like New England’s quarterback played to win the game. Or not?
I think we could say a team’s strategy to win the game was sub-optimal or unsuccessful, but it doesn’t sound like they didn’t play to win. Unless they didn’t. Or something. I dunno.
I would actually say there's a pretty sizable difference between "playing to win" and "playing not to lose".
I’m not sure I agree. If you think your best strategy to win is playing not to lose, are you not playing to win? It’s perhaps a careful, conventional strategy that might seem overly cautious or undynamic, but bold, vigorous play has its own drawbacks that somehow seem to evade characterization as not being focused on “playing to win.”
Not applicable here, but I think the problem is that some coaches play to not get fired.
Ayyup.
There are various arguments out there about coaches' risk aversion, such that they often fail to take win probability-maximizing choices. They go for it far too rarely on 4th down, for example.
Philly was extremely aggressive. Aggressive in their play calling -- they didn't try to protect Foles, they had him make plays: 44 pass plays called. They went for it on fourth and 1 twice, once in their own territory. They ran a trick play that they'd only practiced a few times. They got into a shootout with New England and they never flinched. Everytime NE pulled closer, they went out and took the fight to NE and prevailed. They didn't just try to run out the clock, they tried to keep scoring.
From Bill Barnwell:
Emphasis mine. This highlights two game-changing plays, plays where most teams don't do what Philly did. And they did it in the Super Bowl, where second guessing is going to be huge if they fail. But, beyond those two play calls, they had Foles pressuring and pressing the NE defense all night. Biggest game of their lives... and they played like they were cold blooded killers... like they were the team that had been there 8 times and were the prohibitive favorites. Set aside all the problems with football. This was, in my mind, one of the best performances in a Super Bowl as a team, ever.
My only strategic quibble was with the decision to go for a 2-point conversion on their second touchdown. They should have kicked at that point to go up by 13. That one missing point ended up affecting damn near the entire flow of the game.
It also meant that the FG at the end of the game didn't effectively end the game since the Eagles won by just one score (8 points) instead of 2 (9 points).
My thoughts on the Super Bowl:
We miss Prince more than we even expected*. I've heard Wolf Eyes' records with more musicality.
*It's a given that if Prince had survived, he would have had this halftime show, right?
This definitely would’ve been Prince’s show, yes.
Agreed. Nothing worse than watching a team punt on 4th and 1 when the other team has a good offense.
My thought on the Super Bowl is that it was a good game and an entertaining game, but not really a great game because there were few great plays. The Foles catch was memorable because it was a trick play, but it wasn't a great throw or a great catch. The sack/fumble on Brady near the end was big because of the situation, but no different from plays we see every game. Other than that, it was mostly quarterbacks with plenty of time to throw hitting open receivers. One could say that the offensive lines did a great job, but it's not like that's going to be on a highlight reel. But again, it was a good, entertaining game, and maybe that's enough.
For all the passing, it did seem pretty routine.
Yea, the defenses on both sides were pretty bad (after the first quarter).
Second thought: with all those missed kicks, I doubt they'll play another superbowl in an indoor stadium anytime soon.
Philadelphia certainly made it seem like a certain quarterback from North Dakota may have been a little overrated.
SBG sniffs the bait and then swims the other way.
Are you sure? There's a lot of chum there!
I’m dreading this work shift. Monday is usually a drag as it is, but today’s best case scenario is that we don’t take back too many Super Bowl rentals.
I've been thinking of getting a tv for our bedroom with tax return money. Might have to swing by the local Blue Box and see what kind of open items there are. I'm guessing most of those Super Bowl returns are probably bigger than 40-43 inches, though, yeah?
Yes, but you’ll probably have a good selection regardless. We always get a ton of returns after the Christmas season and struggle with them for months.
I should stop by.
Stopped in at Lee County complex to inhale some Twins spring training. Wandered a bit, then had a nice visit with the attendent in the Twins shop.
New Franz Ferdinand album dropping on Friday. I'm pretty excited!
Back from urgent care, and Elder Daughter has been confirmed with the flu (she didn't get the shot this year). Too far along for Tamiflu, they gave her some Tussin with codeine and told her to rub dirt on it. She started her job last week, worked three days and has now been out sick three days. She got sick on the last day I had my work insurance because she's getting her own policy from her new job and the rest of us are going on a family plan through Mrs. Twayn's job, only Elder Daughter hasn't been able to enroll for benefits yet because they didn't have her accounts set up last week, so effectively she had no coverage today. I had to pay $100 down and depending on labs (they did a chest x-ray) the cash cost for this visit could be as high as $580. We're hoping her insurance coverage will be backdated to her start date, but I'm not going to hold my breath.
Sounds like there are some nasty strains of flu out there. She is in our prayers.
I'm always shocked when I learn that people are covered by insurance right away when starting a job and not 90 days later like it was in Texas. Gotta make damn sure you're not taking a job just to get the sweet, sweet deductibles (and other very FZ things).
and I hope your daughter gets better soon. This flu season seems to be pretty awful.
R. I. P. John Mahoney, who among other things played Frazier Crane's father on Frazier, at age seventy-seven.
was just coming here to say the same. That was a great role, on a great show.
A baseball connection: he famously played Black Sox manager Kid Gleason in Eight Men Out.
I had no idea he was from England. I always figured he was an Irish guy from Chicago.
So when Frasier started he was 53. Just 15 years older than Grammer.
Yes, when I first saw he died at 77, it struck me that he must have been much younger than he looked on Frasier.
He was also in Say Anything.
The Iron Giant always gets overlooked, but in this particular company it's especially weak:
RIP
What? Antz is my favorite Woody Allen kids' movie.
My fav was The Hudsucker Proxy
on tarmac at DEN. cabin door is mysteriously reopened. flight attendant looks outside, walks away. head flight attendant comes up and looks outside, walks away (ambulance with cherries going flying by outside on tarmac!?) . PILOT comes back, looks outside for a time, emotionless. walks back to cockpit.
diagnosis: improperly deployed emergency exit slide. it was a perplexing few moments as an uninformed passenger.