Gene Honda Civic

sold. I'd give 'em Crede Garland and Cotts, and I'm a big fan off latter two. Plus prospects. I'd be willing to give 'em sweeney. Edit: as I think bout it -- There's no way they'd want JG... He's going to make $3MIL next season.. They can get better for cheaper.

Pierre + Lowell and I'd s*** myself. That makes the line-up incredibly better.

Sorry DB, but the quote you posted clearly says he doesn't have a no-trade clause... The one trump card he does hold is that he can void the contract in the off-season if there is no stadium... The way I read it, he will stay with the marlins if they 'promise' him they'll put a competitive team on the field... Do you really think Marlins ownership is going to say to the guy, "no we're going to try and lose this year" My guess is that he stays with the fish no matter their stadium issues... The only way I see him leaving is in a trade, with the Fish looking to clear some salary.

:drooling smiley

Oh I left the "big inning" thing on there because I wanted to compare JG to a couple of other pitchers too... I was hoping for some suggestions, my brain is currently broken. I was thinking they should be 1) in the AL 2) a #3 starter, or thereabout. 3) pitch in a hitter friendly home park

MLB debuted a new stat yesterday... O-Zone Percentage I did a hatchet job on it at my blog. Here's a better portion of it. What is O-Zone Factor? O-Zone factor is derived from calculating a teams ability to score runners from second and third base(scoring position) vs. a teams ability to prevent runners from scoring from scoring position. Here is the current O-Zone factor standings Where do the White Sox rank? The White Sox are 14th in O-Zone Factor. However, in the two sub-stat's that go into calculating O-zone factor the sox rank first and last. In Offensive-RISP%(renamed for ease of use), the sox are the best in baseball. They score runners from scoring position more often than any other team in baseball. In Defensive-RISP%, the Sox are the worst team in all of baseball. They allow runners to score from scoring position more often than any other team in baseball. So is the O-Zone Factor an accurate predictor of winning percentage? This is the best. I didn't even have to come up with that question. It's right there in the article linked at the top of this entry. So here is MLB's answer. After running a few numbers, it was discovered that a greater correlation exists between recent O Zone success and winning percentage (.726 correlation from 1999-2004) than between red-zone scoring and victories in the NFL (.657 correlation last two seasons). In other words, how a team performs both offensively and defensively with RISP has been just as, if not more important, than an NFL team's red-zone success -- when comparing recent data. NHL scoring data offers similar results when looking at the past two seasons. If you take a team's success on power plays and subtract the rate they allow power play goals, there is also a strong correlation (.587) when comparing that number to winning (in this case team points), but still not as high as O Zone data from the past six seasons. For those of you unfamiliar with the term correlation, the closer the correlation is to 1 the more accurate a predictor the item is. And here is the inherent problem with 0-Zone factor. MLB is trying to sell it as a predictor of success, which it's not. It compares it to the NFL's red-zone scoring, but neglects to mention that Rushing Yards, Time of Possession, and turnover margin all correlate better than does red-zone scoring. Similarly, there are plenty of other baseball statistics that correlate with winning perctage better than O-Zone factor. OPS minus OPS allowed, has a correlation of .911, Runs Scored minus Runs allowed is .951, compared to O-Zone's .726. O-zone is flawed because it's a rate stat. It's essentially Offensive BA w/RISP minus Defensive RISP BAA. A team could allow 1 run all season, but allow it to score by being driven in from scoring position, and they would automatically have a negative O-Zone, unless they plated every one of their runners who reached second base. It doesn't take into account the amount of times a team puts runners in scoring position, or allows runners in scoring position. For some reason they failed to see this error. This stat doesn't recognize that a run scored by a double with a runner on first is just as valuable as one with a RISP. Similarly it doesn't account for HR's without runners in scoring position, which are very valuable. A run is a run, it counts just the same, no matter the route taken to get there. They did, however leave some raw data, which is fully sortable, and can be used to better evaluate a teams chances of winning. The column labeled 'Net-RS-RISP', is a better indicator of winning percentage than O-zone. 'Net-RS-RISP' is essentially the number of baserunners who reach scoring position minus the number of baserunners a team allows to reach scoring position. This stat correlates much better than O-zone at a correlation of .8967 On the whole it's a pretty useless stat that MLB trotted out there without much thought to try and capitalize on the whole sabermetrics craze. The plan backfired, and I'm sure anyone with a little sense is laughing at the dinosaur that is MLB. MLB has done some good things, streaming all games over the internet at a relatively cheap price is probably among the best of them. That was ahead of their time, but they should allow the study of baseball to be led by those that truly care about the game, not those who are looking to turn a profit on it. The Big Inning There was a little bit that I was going to write about tonight's game, but I've rambled for far too long. I'll just leave you with this. DJ put some poor statistician to work to calculate what percentage of Jon Garland's runs came from "big innings", which he described as 3 or more runs. The result was that JG had allowed 42% of his runs this season during the 'big inning'. It's long been my belief that JG does not, in fact, allow the 'big inning' at a significantly greater rate than other pitchers, but Hawk and DJ have chosen to harp about it. I'll wait until the end of the season, but I'm going to go through the box scores and compare JG to Mark Buehrle. My gut feeling is that MB will be nominally better, but not significantly. Not as much as Hawk and DJ would like you to believe.

at least we know we are safe from Ted Kennedy and Cat stevens. Those terrorist bastards.

Tomorrow is the last Twins game -- Better get those reservations in now.

I think the main statistic that I have to be tracking from gload is his OBP... He's always hit. He's always had some power. But he's never really had a great batting eye. In the event that pauly is gone next season. It will be Gloads OBP more than his SLG that will matter to this team. A couple of games ago he walked twice, and I was pleased with his strike zone judgement, but then I realized he was hitting in front of JV, and they were actually pitching around Gload to get to JV... Tonights 2 BB's were earned, though Lohse was wild. Gload was hitting with Pauly behind him, and I'm sure no pitcher was looking to face pauly in that situation.

Here's a weird f***ing stat... MLB tries to jump on the Sabrmetrics bandwagon, unsucessfully, with the new "stat" O-Zone factor http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb...s_mlb&fext=.jsp I'm in the process of completely debunking the value of this stat for my blog.... There is something interesting there if you can figure it out trough all of the alphabet soup they have going on in there. The White Sox are the best in baseball at getting runners in from scoring position. They are also the worst in baseball at preventing runners who reach scoring position from scoring.

In fairness Konerko was mostly to blame, but I never miss an opportunity.

Gload reached base 4 times today while hitting in the #3 spot. He failed to score... Timo Perez is GOD.

Indefinite means undetermined,unknown... HE could be back tomorrow with the term Indefinitely. They don't know how bad it is, but I would suspect that 1 month sounds like a good guess.

I just did... ILL will be lucky to break 50 yards rushing... 150yards passing, and 3 points.

I'd take Purdue V. the spread in a heartbeat, the only team in the Big Ten worse than Iowa at defending the pass is Illinois... Purdue's D is highly underrated too.

Thomas @ $8MIL >> Konerko @ 8.75MIL End of story.

Wheaton North = Chuck Long Wheaton South = Jon Beutjer /nuff said

Purple Heart? He was injured in battle.

Batted above .250 once in 4 years OBP over .333 never. Sign me up!!!

They pissed down there legs in their first Real road game last season vs. a bad michigan state team too... It seems to be a characteristic. That being said ASU is exactly the type of team that will tear Iowa a new one. They've got an experienced QB and a high-powered passing attack... I am not looking forward to the purdue game... That being said, They will win in the metrodome knocking Minnesota out of the Rose Bowl in November.. And have a good shot at knocking off a weak Michigan team next week. The match-ups are just better... You're welcome Purdue.

Unearned runs by pitcher... Don't be fooled by what Hawk and DJ tell you. MB - 12 JG - 7 FG - 3 (2 with us)

I'll bite... when was the last time neal went more than 2 innings? I was surprised when Neal came in for the 9th. I was shocked to see him out there for the 10th. ozzie should know his guys better than that. Had ben davis actually let go of the ball there would have been 3 outs, and we all would have been raving about how good Neal is... 3 IP 1H 6K's.

I think somebody kidnapped the hawkeyes... Cuz whoever is playing in those uniforms tonight it's not them.

They did the Wave -- No props for them.