I need to apologize for my geekness in the last blog with Strat-o-matic (SOM) stuff. Less then 10 minutes (maybe a half hour) before I started typing I received the 2018 ratings book with all the info a person needs to totally geek out on baseball.
remember - in 1970 I stayed home from school (had the "runs") waiting for the mail which would bring what most SOM players believe is better then Christmas (it is like Christmas without all that family stuff). ANYWAY - this is year #50 for me in SOM. In fact most of my adult life I have been "sick" a day in February waiting. And I'm not alone with my "sickness". So - no more intimacy with SOM in the blog.
HOWEVER - something I read in this mornings paper tweaked me. David Stearns said the era of the "Three True Outcomes", strikeouts, walks and home runs might be over for the Brewers. Milwaukee led the league in "Three True Outcomes" with 37.4% of the time a batter struck out, walked or hit a home run.
As I was reading this a pitching metric popped into my head. FIP. ERA is not a very good statistic and is disregarded by many baseball nuts as a stat of the past (like Wins.Saves and Batting Average) especially when it comes to the bullpen. A closer comes into the game with the bases loaded and gives up 3 singles and strikes a guy out. His ERA will go down but he had a FAIL.
That does not really tell you he was great right? So in 1990 FIP was created. FIP only takes home runs, walks and strikeouts into the equation and it does very well as a true indicator of a pitchers prowess.
Remember Suppan? His career ERA was 4.70, his career FIP was 4.86 using only HR, K and BB in the equation. Gallardo the new Brewer #1 Starter (God I hope not) career ERA 3.93 FIP 3.97.
What FIP does is take horrible fielding or stellar fielding out of play. When the Brewers signed Suppan he just came off a year where he had a 4.12 ERA. YET - he had a great infield behind him. His FIP for that same year was 4.70. The next year he was a Brewer which had one of the worst infields in the Majors. His ERA ballooned up to 4.62 but his FIP was lower at 4.42 (not the BEST example I guess but you get the idea).
Side note - WOW - I did not realize Suppan was not that good. 17 years and a career ERA of 4.70? YIKES
FIP Formula
Where the "FIP constant" puts FIP onto the same scale as the entire league's ERA: ((HR x 13) + (3 x (BB + HBP)) - (2 x K)) / IP + FIP constant.
Why it's useful - Because FIP is limited to the events a pitcher has the most control over, it's arguably a better tool than ERA for evaluating a pitcher's effectiveness. It's also useful for predicting a pitcher's future results, because a pitcher has little control over what happens once the ball is put in play behind him.
Fantasy advantage -
A pitcher with a low FIP but a high ERA has most likely seen a string of bad luck on balls in play. He could be a buy-low candidate, assuming he eventually gets league-average results on balls in play.
Balls in Play is yet another interesting thing (average is .300 and MOST OF THE TIME a pitcher will always move towards .300). Another time for that
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SO - Speaking of the Milwaukee Bucks - the GREAT DEFENSE EXPERIMENT is over with the departure of Jason Kidd. Never has so many good defensive players played so poorly in his experiment. It might have failed but the entire NBA was watching and a lesson was learned. He had the perfect team to try it and it worked . . . and didn't work.
SO - what was so different?
This defense was like and NFL blitz defense. The idea was that since most of the Bucks players have unusually long arms (Giannis Antetokounmpo has a 7'2" wingspan) and are tall, why not be very aggressive against any player with the ball. Make the ball handler pass as he gets "blitzed" and with the crazy long arms steal the ball to force a turnover. Force inaccurate passing and it will make up for being late on rotations.
That part worked great. The Bucks were 5th in creating turnovers, steals and general chaos. They also lead the league in giving up shots 3 feet away from the basket. In fact 33% of shots against the Bucks were from 3 feet away. The Bucks were a layup factory.
Since the firing, the new coach went back to REAL defense and the Bucks have done great . . against poor teams but doing what they need to do.
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WHEW - got sports out of me.
The President needed a record amount of time to tell ALL of his lies. 48% of his facts were either false or outright lies according to the fact checkers.
And too readers of this blog - Once Trump is gone I will go back to being normal Rod who does not really care THAT much about global politics.
Actions speak louder then words when it comes to POTUS speeches.
I did not watch the verbal diarrhea but turned did see Kennedy's rebuttal. My first impression was just like a headline I saw in Business Insider - - -The 'future' of the Democratic Party made his national debut in the party's response to Trump's State of the Union.
Great - another name from the past. Are we a monarchy?
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OMG - they just started dry walling in our basement. It LITERALLY sounds like I have a dentist in the basement with giant drills Iggy is freaking out.
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Las Vegas. The number one money making in LV are slot machines. Well, the total number of slots in LV is down 23% from 2001. Millennials just are not that big on this money grabbers. More skill based machines are being installed - like video games that take skill.
OMG - It LITERALLY (I really do mean literally) feels like the house is getting a root canal LOL
Cape Town South Africa is running out of water, literally. At some point in April they will be out of water. Starting Feb 1 each resident will only be allowed 13 gallons of water a day, for EVERYTHING.
WEATHER
We have an actual predictable storm heading our way - not some accidental flurry's that accumulate. Saturday an actual system will arrive (maybe) with 1-3 inches but the three main models are in disagreement. The GFS (the good one) model says we will get the snow. The European model puts the snow starting later in the day but the Canadian model drops the arctic front deep deep into ILL and they get the snow.
Whatever happens Sunday and all next week will be c c c cold.
Have a great day
OH OH - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel - what an outstanding show THAT is. A period comedy about a female stand up comedian. The look and feel of this show is amazing.
Lots of awards
Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy
Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy
https://youtu.be/fOmwkTrW4OQ
