With all these new stadiums getting All-Star games, I can’t post about visiting the stadium. I went to the Metrodome in 2004, well before Target Field. I was living in Minnesota that year for a co-op. I convinced the co-op/internship program to pick a Twins game when the Phillies were in town. To add to the excitement, Larry Bowa got thrown out during the game. That’s all I remember. That and that it was a football stadium so the seats didn’t face home plate, but straight forward into the outfield (from the 3rd base line).
Target Field looks nice and the Twin Cities in July is a pretty great spot for an All Star Game. Compared to this year in KC, the Twin Cities have a lot more going on and it isn’t nearly as hot.
When will the All-Star game come back to Philly? I expect 2015 and 2017 to be some order of DC and Miami. Meaning 2019 for Philly at the earliest. The Phillies missed out with the new stadium buzz since they last had it in 1996 (I was there!) and then the new stadium opened in 2004. Also, the early 2000s Phillies weren’t a big deal so no one was all that excited about coming back. Now is a different story but we’re caught in a round of new stadiums.
A look at the Top 50 baseball players of all time. This is long and totally worth reading.
I found this through another blog (I forget which). I went to add this blog to my Google Reader and found the most recent article is called, ‘In Defense of Tim McCarver’. Ut oh. I’ll give it a read though, maybe there is decent point in there.
Interesting article on the Rockies attempt to use a 4-man rotation. I heard about this during the Phillies-Rockies game yesterday, since I’m not a usual follower of the Rockies. I don’t think you can fault the Rockies at all for trying something different. They’ve never had any luck with pitching. It has a lot to do with their location, but even if it didn’t, trying to work something out with the pitching staff you’ve been given should be applauded. So I have no idea why anyone would read The Denver Post if the criticism mentioned in the NY Times article is their usual baseball coverage. You’d think the Rockies would be in a better position to do these things, from the aspect that they aren’t an old team with lots of ‘old school’ baseball people around who are terrified of doing things differently.
As for the actual proposal: 4 starters, limited to 75 pitches, and 3 relievers for middle relief and some starts. Why so limited? Why not go with 8 pitchers for this project, pair them and limit everyone to 75 pitches. There has to be some benefit of pairing 2 almost starters together if they have some characteristics that make them difficult for a batter to follow. Lefty/Righter, hard throwing/change-up master, any combination that would throw off the batter’s balance.
I’m not sure I can get the pitch data exactly like I want. A simple per team home/away pitch/out report would do.
Looking at yesterday’s game against the Phillies is a decent enough single sample. It was a home game, they only gave up 5 runs (on 6 hits) and 4 walks. Seems about average. The pitchers (and pitches): Pomeranz (80), Torres (31), Ekstrom (11), and Betancourt (4). That’s 126 total pitches. This is just one game, so those numbers are fairly meaningless.
I still think this is worth a shot, just with the actual pairing. They can even market this like tag-team wrestling. Advertise the starter and reliever together. Develop a whole ad campaign of all these odd couples having to do everyday things together. Go all in Rockies.
Lots of weekend series getting underway tonight, so moving this to a Thursday post. You can still make your picks.
Stay Away Series: Astros/Cubs and Padres/Rockies. Both evenly matched not so good teams.
Interesting Series (to me): Phillies/Marlins (for last place in NL East), Nationals/Braves (top of NL East), Tigers/Rays (underperforming and stuck in the middle of their divisions).
Division Leader Matchups: White Sox/Yankees and Reds/Giants.
ESPN Sunday Night: Mets/Dodgers. Mets were on last week. There are a bunch of other more interesting matchups this weekend.
Series of the Weekend: Reds/Giants. I was going with either of the division leader series, this one edged it out with the Giants currently tied for the division lead and the Reds with only a 2-game lead over the Pirates (not counting that they already won today) and Cardinals.
I had some difficulties picking this week. Seems like a lot of even match ups. Of course ESPN is going Yankees/Mets for Sunday Night.
The most shocking part of this week’s distribution? Three people made their 10 picks and no one disagreed. There was some variation on which series were picked, but the winners were all agreed upon.
What does that mean? Mariners/Padres and Dodgers/Angels are the stay aways. Mariners and Padres are indeseripherably awful. Which means …
This past weekend was the 11th of the baseball season. For Baseball Series Picks on Ice Cream Helmet this season I decided to focus on just weekend series (and by I decided I mean Evan suggested the idea and I decided it was worth a shot). I was curious how teams had been doing in their weekend series. Partly out of curiosity, and also to help with future picks.
Picking these series has been more difficult than expected. I had to change the scoring to give more points to correct picks because just doing a net of picks was leading to a lot of negative scoring weekends. This weekend I tied my best yet, going 7-3 for 11 points. I’d done that once before. Evan holds the single weekend high with 12 points back in Week 3. He did so well he must have retired, he hasn’t made picks since.
The following table shows each team’s record in weekend series. I mentioned 11 weekends have passed, but it is possible to have a no decision in a weekend series due to 4 games series or rainouts. The lesson: go with the Dodgers. The Phillies have been bad this year but especially terrible on the weekends. Lucky for them the Padres and Cubs haven’t shown up for many weekend games.
A few weeks ago I updated the Ice Cream Helmet Baseball Standings page to include playoff chances. Right now it just makes predictions based on run differential so far and the future schedule.
It should update each morning as the scoreboard is updated. At some point I’ll work on some more complex predictions. I hope to have something similar for each sport.
Sometimes I think even older people pretend they don’t know what Twitter and Facebook are all about. I never put Charlie Manual in that category. Even with a bunch of his players tweeting all the time. I stopped following all of them, it was too much.
That means nothing about this video is surprising. Yet it is still so amazing.
That’s right, he’s sooo coy. He’s also winless through 8 starts, 6 of them quality starts. Finally, tonight the Phillies scored 10 for him. Well, not for him. When Cliff left, it was tied at 3. The Phillies then scored 7 over the next two innings. It’s a win. Still in last place, but a win.
