Dont’cha just love well thought out titles?
Writing about player performance this early in the season is at least somewhat silly, but is pretty much required anyway (see Infallible Prediction Number 12). So we solider on.
Archive for the ‘Fogging The Measure’ Category
Fogging the Measure: It’s Looks Like 2006 (or Some Year Like That) for Pronk and Puma
Posted by Matt Klaassen under Fogging The Measure, Lance Berkman, New York Yankees on Apr 25, 2013
Fogging the Measure: A Fun Evening With Uncle Buck and Company
Posted by Matt Klaassen under Fogging The Measure, Kansas City Royals, Toronto Blue Jays on Apr 18, 2013
As much fun as it is to laugh at the expense of those who call baseball games for television and radio broadcasts, most of us likely would agree that filling up air, even to a minimal extent, is difficult. I have no experience in any form of “real” journalism*, so it may be in bad taste for me to go after people whose nominal job, for better or worse, is to keep the viewer engaged in a sport that is not exactly fast-paced. Anecdotes and bits of data are needed (?) to fill up the airwaves.
* – my rare appearances on podcasts and whatnot, while somewhat fulfilling for my ego, are, well, probably pretty horrible for listeners. Not that I ever turn down an opportunity to enter the charmed circle of internet media mavens!
The Blue Jays’ usual broadcast team of Buck Martinez and Company probably aren’t any worse than most broadcast booths around the league. But who am I kidding? I am still a pretty big jerk. Even if Fire Joe Morgan is so 2005, several comments during last Friday’s game with the Blue Jays in Kansas City to face the Royals really stood out to me.
The game itself was “I watched this on purpose“-tastic (and my fantasy season awkwardly slid down the tubes with Jose Reyes‘ injury), and as I let the frustration of that combine with my incredulity of some of the comments made by the announce team, it crept into the absurd. Here are some of my favorites, with commentary.
Fogging the Measure: Strikeouts Revisited Again
Posted by Matt Klaassen under Fogging The Measure, Houston Astros on Apr 11, 2013
Hey, did you hear that the 2013 Astros are striking out a bunch? No, really it’s true.
Earlier this week, Jayson Stark compiled a list of comparables to get a sense of how often Houston was striking out. Among them: they were on pace to collectively strikeout out 1,900 times, they struck out almost as many times in their first seven games of 2013 as Tony Gwynn did in one five-year stretch of his career, through their first seven games they were collectively striking out at a higher rate than Mark Reynolds did last year (they have since come down a bit), and so on.
To summarize: a whole lot of strikeouts.
Obviously, you don’t come to this blog just to read a bunch of regurgitated facts that aren’t even true anymore. Lost in the midst of all the hoopla surrounding the Astros being bad this year is an interesting question: What about strikeouts? Wasn’t one of the many lessons of the first wave of sabermetrics that strikeouts were not significantly worse than other outs?
Fogging the Measure: 22 Infallible Predictions for 2013
Posted by Matt Klaassen under Fogging The Measure, Jeff Francoeur on Apr 04, 2013
It has been a long time coming. The winter was long and difficult. The anticipation was exhausting. The off-season debates were wearing thin. But finally, this week, relief: Fogging the Measure, North America’s most pretentious and 9,835th most-beloved semi-sabermetric blog feature is back!
[HOLDS FOR APPLAUSE]
The season has already started, so it seems a bit too late to give my INFALLIBLE PREDICTIONS for the 2013 baseball season, but here we are. No phony humility for me. Yeah, there will be more detailed stuff to follow, but I gotta get this stuff out there so at the end of the season I can point out how right I was about everything. Because when a saber-friendly blogger projects something to happen, he or she means it is definitely going to happen. Ergo, if that thing doesn’t happen, sabermetrics is disproven, right?
So here they are, a few INFALLIBLE PREDICTIONS about the 2013 baseball season, both on the field, off the field, and in cyberspace.
Fogging the Measure: Caring About The Gold Gloves
Posted by Matt Klaassen under Defense Matters, Fogging The Measure on Oct 30, 2012
It isn’t cool to care about awards anymore. We all know who the real most valuable player in the American League is, we don’t need the BBWWWWWAAAAAA (I think that’s right) to tell us.
Even further down the priority list of Concerns for Hip Bloggers are the Gold Gloves. Sure, they are chosen (at least nominally) by baseball managers who know the game. The clearly ridiculous choices of the past (Rafael Palmeiro? Derek Jeter? Michael Never Complains Young?) only confirm the impression some writers give: the managers basically are wracking their brains at the end of the year, just trying to think up the names of fielders on other teams since they can’t vote for their own.
It doesn’t help matters that voting occurs at a time of the year when other things are on their mind. It is unlikely to be high priority. It would not surprise me if some managers simply go to their team’s public relations flack to fill out their ballots.
I suppose I understand the apathy – or, as I suspect, the posture of apathy – among many bloggers and writers about the Gold Gloves. However, I am here to tell you that I care.
Fogging the Measure: Five Thoughts Around Marco Scutaro
Posted by Matt Klaassen under Fogging The Measure, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, Toronto Blue Jays on Oct 23, 2012
The San Francisco Giants are in the World Series, and just as everyone thought, Marco Scutaro was the hero. Wait, who?
Yeah, Marco Scutaro, whose 500/.533/.607 line in the National League Championship Series would have been enough to thrust him into the spotlight even if he had not endured a brutal breakup slide by Matt Holliday in Game One. As a tribute to Scutaro’s performance, here are a few relevant thoughts on a spectacularly normal Major League regular.
Fogging the Measure: The Tigers’ Catcher Platoon
Posted by Matt Klaassen under Alex Avila, Detroit Tigers, Fogging The Measure, Gerald Laird on Oct 16, 2012
Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland has come under a bit of fire lately, mostly for his late game bullpen management, or mismanagement if you (like Miguel Cabrera) prefer.
However, as it is with any manager, Leyland has both good and bad characteristics. The marginal difference he makes relative to other managers is very difficult (or virtually impossible, depending on how one parses the situation) to measure. One thing beyond how he has chosen to use his relievers that has stood out to me is how he’s kept his two catchers – Alex Avila and Gerald Laird – in a platoon through the postseason.
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Dustin Parkes, Andrew Stoeten, Scott Lewis, Craig Robinson, Matt Klaassen, Eno Sarris, Riley Breckenridge
