Cup of Coffee

July 6, 2018: Cabin

21 Comments

Off to the family cabin for the first of two trips up this month. My daughters have been up since Sunday; having some time just with Cathy is great, but I'm really missing them at this point.

21 thoughts on “July 6, 2018: Cabin”

    1. That is...
      That is a lot of bombs.

      I've read a lot of books and watched lots of movies that touched on the London Blitz in some way, but until seeing that, I never had any sort of concept of the scale. That's crazy.

  2. Decent article in the Strib about incorporating analytics into the broadcast.

    http://www.startribune.com/twins-broadcasters-ponder-how-much-analytics-is-too-much-during-broadcast/487461201/

    Especially since the up to only 20 months ago the Twins organization was so analytics-adverse I think that is still baked in with Dick and Bert (obviously). I don't mind the go slow approach given where the broadcasters were just recently. However, I wish the article would have mentioned that many markets are a much further down the path of talking about analytics than FSN. Some of the comments in the article were fun. A woman who doesn't understand OPS (I put that squarely on broadcasters, that's easy to explain). The guy who gets all chapped up when he hears the words "exit velocity." Bert's "I just want to call a baseball game maaaan."

    'Bert Rant' SelectShow

    1. I'm pretty impressed with Provus and even Dazzle in this regards. Provus isn't averse to throwing an analytical stat out now and then, even though he may not entirely get it, and while Dazzle is still GOML in a lot of ways, he appreciates Exit Velocity, Launch Angle, Range Factor, etc.

      1. I agree. In fact, I wonder sometimes if part of Dazzle's GOML routine might be an act for entertainment purposes.

            1. I think the shift would be more fun to talk about if we had a good common vocabulary to decribe them. Other sports (soccer, football at least) have terminology for defensive formations but I haven’t run across anything that is common for the newer shifts. Part of it is difficult for baseball in that we’ve already given players numbers for scoring purposes.

              I could imagine something like 1 being close to the 1B line, 2 between 1B and 2B, 3 in line with 2B, 4 between 2B and 3B, and 5 close to 3B. Then put a number in front for depth, so that 11-12-13-14 would be playing with the infield in, 11-22-23-14 might be a fairly standard defensive infield, and 11-32-23-24 would be a shift with a deep 2B, SS up the middle, and 3B shifted to the hole.

              1. Sounds like the zones used in various zone ratings/locations. Retrosheet has a diagram. Those zones might be a bit too broad for some shifts but could be enough to get across the various types of zones.

                1. I’m not really tied to any system at the moment, it would just be nice to have a common, popularized vocabulary.

    2. Joe Morgan has been similar. He was already a Hall-of-Famer, but stat nerds anointed him the best or second best baseman of all time and he hates them.

    3. I actually don’t totally love OPS as a stat for during a game. In any given game situation, I think it makes more sense to talk individually about OBP (how likely is the hitter to get on base) and SLG (how many bases on average will he get.)

      The OPS scale, while not difficult to explain, seems less intuitive to me. OPS+ almost makes more sense to me as a broadcast stat, as you can say it shows how many percent better or worse than average a hitter is when you consider how tough he is to get out and how much power he hits for.

      In general, I would push broadcasters to use stats that help to describe players and put game events into context, rather than stats like OPS which tend to be reductive attempts to put everything into one number.

      1. I completely agree. I've been thinking over it, but lacking the words to quite say what I wanted. I think sometimes the stats can get in the way when they're not contextualizing, and far too often they seem to be unrelated to what's actually happening on the field. I love them for evaluating player acquisitions and value, but that's not what we're doing in-game.

        1. I actually disagree a little. OPS, at this point, is pretty well ingrained with a lot of fans. While OPS+ is better, a lot of fans now are aware that an OPS of .900 to 1.00 is really, really good.

          Basically, it is like understanding temperature scales. We think Fahrenheit seems intuitive because we grew up with it. Canadians think Celsius is intuitive because they grew up with it.

          SLG is anything but intuitive. Average bases per AB? You are telling me that the best players average well below a base per AB? 🤔

          I mean, if you think about it, duh. But not intuitive. You have to have some experience with typical SLGs for singles' hitters and sluggers to have intuition for what a particular player's SLG says about him. Same as for OPS.

          BA everyone gets easily. Probability of getting a hit. OBP, people get. But SLG takes some processing.

          1. So SLG is not intuitive, but adding it to OBP makes it easier to grasp? Not buying that at all.

            I have a beef with OPS in the first place in that it is mainly a dumbed-down version of what wOBA does in a lot more sensible fashion. The only reason to like it is that it is simple to derive if you have OBP and SLG and if you really want just one number, it’s better than OBP, SLG, or AVG on their own.

            1. I think you may have missed (or misread) these sentences, ubes:

              You have to have some experience with typical SLGs for singles' hitters and sluggers to have intuition for what a particular player's SLG says about him. Same as for OPS.

              Your point about wOBA is, of course, spot on.

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