Nerds on Sports

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thursday football. I’ve been in a tryptophan induced coma for the last 48 hours and I still haven’t finished all the leftovers. I guess I’ll head back into the coma tonight.

Earlier this week Perich posted his article about the value of Major League baseball players. Well, that got me thinking about some things I’ve read (and you can read too: Baseball Between the Numbers, Player Value: Last Piece of the Puzzle, Dollar Value of a Player: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and the Hardball Times MVPs), and that there has to be a better different way to figure out a players value. Plus, Perich said “If you have a more objective standard of value, let me hear it.” Maybe my way isn’t “more objective,” but I hope it’s a different enough view of the numbers to see some differences. It’s still not a vote, and that’s what counts. I know I want to take into account a players salary, a players performance, and the teams overall performance. The teams performance is where I vary from Perich.

I believe that if you perform well on a good team, you have more of a value. Why? Because a team that makes the playoffs makes more money. And like any other business the goal of the business is to make money. The hard part is to quantify this difference.

I started my calculations the same way, by downloading all the 2007 salaries from USA Today. Then I downloaded the 2007 stats for Total Bases and VORP for 2007. According to VORP Alex Rodriguz is the clear AL winner with a 96.6. Or almost 10 wins more than a replacement 3b, or 9 more wins then if the Yankees had Ty Wigginton. In the NL, Hanley Ramirez had a great year with a VORP of 89.5. Compare that to the actual MVP, Jimmy Rollins, who had 66.1. Lower than other NL powerhouses: David Wright, Matt Holliday, and Albert Pujols among others. Read more »

Every time I go into a liquor store there is always a large stack of these Red Sox charity wines. It’s like “Get Drunk, Help Children.” So I decided that a tasting (and getting drunk to help the children) was necessary. I had one tasting with RJ (and other non Nerds on Sports) that involved watching Red Sox, eating cheese and drinking wine. Then I had a second tasting with Peiser that was a precursor to a beer tasting event later in the day.

For tasting 1, I paired the Wakefield Caberknuckle with some Cheddar, Monterrey Jack, and Gouda (from Ireland). Ok, I didn’t really choose the pairing, I chose the cheese and gave the guests the choice of Manny Being Merlot or the Caberknuckle. The Caberknuckle describes itself as being well paired with grilled meats, burgers, pasta, and pizza. Sadly all I had was cheese and crackers, so that would have to do. Now before I go any further into this “review” I want to say that I’m not a wine person and when I do drink wine I usually drink something whiter and/or cheaper.

The bottle describes itself as showing “a deep red color with aromas of blackberries, currants and a hint of spice. With it’s long smooth finish, this [is a] well-balanced red.” I have to agree that the aroma (Don’t the winos call this the “nose?”) is good. I don’t know what a currant smells like. Hell, I don’t even know what a currant looks like. The aroma of this 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon is delicious. I could have just smelled my glass for a while but I don’t know if I would classify it as blackberries and currants - there was definitely a grape scent in there too. But maybe there’s some unwritten rule about not talking about the grapes. The taste, on the other hand, wasn’t as great. Nowhere near as fruity as the scent led me to believe and I think it had a bit of that “spice” that was supposedly in the aroma. It wasn’t for me. Read more »

It’s the Fourth of July and we all know what that means: fireworks and competitive eating. Today is the highly anticipated match-up of Takeru Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut. Why is this anticipated? Well, you might know that Kobayashi has won every year since his first contest in 2000 (in 2000 he set a record of 50 dogs, the previous record was 28). Kobayashi has during his 6 year run at the top upped the record for delicious Nathan’s Hot Dogs eaten in 12 minutes to 53.75. That brings us to the challenger, Joey Chestnut. Chestnut is a competitive eater who eats everything. He has world records in waffles, grilled cheese, pork ribs, pulled pork, wings, and asparagus to name a few.

What makes this a great match-up is that in a preliminary round for this years contest, Chestnut broke the hot dog record. The new world record is 59.5 dogs. That’s almost 6 dogs more that Kobayashi. So that is what you can look forward to today for shoving hot dogs into mouths. Kobayashi weighed in Tuesday at 154 pounds; Chestnut at 215 pounds.

You can also fill your day with baseball (which starts early with Cubs v. Nationals game at 11:00am), fireworks, and beer - just as Washington and Jefferson would have wanted. Also when you’re eating hot dogs and watching the game, count the number of hot dogs you ate during the whole day and imagine eating them all during what amounts to one half-inning of baseball.

I’m hungry just thinking about all this food, so enjoy your holiday and eat some hot dogs.

At the behest of the Powers That Be here at nerdsonsports.com, I have laid claim to Mondays and will be posting my darkest secrets and most ludicrous conspiracy theories on the first workday of every week.  So this is Business Day One, your source for ten minutes of sports-related distraction every Monday.  Here we go.

The day job that allows me to pay my bills involves a lot of quantitative and trend analysis.  More than “a lot,” actually.  “A terrifying amount” would be the best way to describe it.  As much as I want to quarantine that part of my brain to prevent it from affecting the rest, I need to accept my station in life as an Analyst and realize that my trend and variance geekery is a part of me.  As such, for my first Business Day One column, I offer three trend observations that have been on my mind this past week.

1.  Aging NBA big men are a lot like aging MLB left-handed pitchers, in that they can both hang in their respective games much longer than they really should. 

Read more »