Nerds on Sports

I decided to find all the spare electronic parts that I could find around my apartment and build a baseball projections robot. Some of the things I found include: an alarm clock, TI-83, a broken toaster, a VCR, an Apple IIe, a PlayStation, a watch with a calculator on it, and a car phone (with carrying case). Armed with my trusty soldering iron and a wondering imagination, I put together ProjectoTron 3000.

Last night, I put in all the current MLB statistics that were available at the time (stats through 4/2/08) and let it start calculating. I went to work in the morning and it was still calculating. Finally when I got home this evening I was able to see it starting to spit out some odd projections for the season. There are a few that I think I should share with you.

First there is JI Read more »

I think having a free taco and giving out free tacos to children only slightly dressed up at my doorstep has ruined my writing energy for the week. So I shall tell you where else you can go for some exciting things. Of course, I will mix in some fun pictures, because Google Image Search is our biggest visitor (by biggest, I mean only - I don’t think anyone gets here without going through Google) and I have to keep them happy.

• Does Papelbon have formal training in Irish Step Dancing?
• Goulet is a ghoul now, but Deadspin helps us remember the funny.
• Fire Joe Morgan has checked the PECOTA predictions for next year - They find that the Chicago White Sox are going to end the season at 0-162. Read more »

In Vegas they make predictions all the time. The goal of Vegas predictions (especially with football lines) is to guess the exact difference in score so that everybody loses their money. Or put the odds in that place where people are willing to fork over their dough in hopes of increased cash flow, but not too high as to cause bankruptcy if you have to pay out.

The World Series is full of predictions and betting. I could predict the Rockies sweeping the Sox and with The Greek having that at 25:1, I could put down $100 and walk away with $2500. But since I think that the Sox will win in 6 (agreeing with Vegas, disagreeing with Serpico who thinks the Sox sweep) it would be me putting down $100 and walking away with $0.

I wondered if any of the Nerds on Sports predictions could lead to some good betting lines, so I asked the team to break out their crystal balls and let me know what they saw. As it turns out we have some active crystal balls. Here are the NoS Predictions:

On Field antics:

• David Ortiz makes a diving catch at first.
• Kaz Matsui goes 0 for the entire world series (I know, not a stretch).
• Troy Tolowiski smokes some weed (look at the picture:
  http://colorado.rockies.mlb.com/images/players/mugshot/ph_453064.jpg )
  with Manny.
• Eric Gagne pitches a scoreless seventh inning. In a PawSox uniform. In 2009.
• Pappelbon wears his goggles while pitching.
• It will snow during the games… while in Boston. Read more »

So I rolled the ol’ 20-sided Blogosahedron this week and I think I rolled a critical hit, but you should be the one to decide that. We have recently enjoyed some wild card baseball. Some people may think that this wild card thing has been around for quite a while, but that’s not true - it’s only been around for 10 years. Way back in 1993 the owners voted to add the wild card into baseball. There was only 1 dissenting vote…

For a little bit of science, there is the new super-high-tech NHL jersey. And if you think those jerseys are stupid, check out what Dallas considers professional journalism.

Tim McCarver may be professional, but it turns out that it took him until ALCS Game 4 to realize that to get multiple runs, getting 1 run is better than getting 0 runs:

Believe it or not, Joe, in 2007 when a team led off an inning with a home run, it led to more multiple-run innings than when a team led off an inning with a lead-off walk! It doesn’t seem like that would be the case.

Now that the science is out of the way, I can move to the fun stuff. Read more »

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I would like to make it up to you with something substantive, but that’s not going to happen until next Thursday at the earliest. Instead, I present you with Jonathan Papelbon’s commercial for 125 Auto, continuing in the great tradition of hysterical Red Sox commercials. This one, unintentionally so:

I still find in a little endearing, despite the fact he clearly memorized his lines ten minutes beforehand. Paps, stick to pitching, ok? You’re a lot less stiff and wooden out on the mound.

When I first heard about Red Sox wines, I thought it must clearly be a joke of some kind. April Fool’s Day isn’t too far gone, after all, and wine and baseball are not two things I usually associate with each other. But a quick look at the site reveals that the wines - “Manny Being Merlot” included - are all being sold to benefit Red Sox ballplayers’ favorite charities.

There are obviously a lot of jokes that come to mind, the first of which being that it must take a special, one-of-a-kind, flown-in-from-San-Diego sommelier to uncork the CaberKnuckle, lest the cork goes bouncing all over, and the bottle passes through his/her hands and goes flying, and it decreases the wine’s intended value. Mostly, though, I am thinking up of ways to expand their brand; there are a lot of good combinations out there. Read more »

Jason Varitek might be first in my heart, but he’s coming off an awful spring training. He batted a whopping .103 while in Florida, which included an 0-17 streak. One mustn’t extrapolate too much from this. He did, after all, hit as many home runs while there as Albert Pujols. But the next few months will be the test as to whether his work with batting coach Dave Magadan has done anything to halt the precipitous drop in power and offense he had last year.

But don’t worry. I still love you, JV. Read more »

The big news of today was that Jonathan Papelbon will be the Red Sox’s closer for the upcoming season. I am two minds of this, as I’ve been wanting to see him start regularly since he was first called up, but at the same time I definitely didn’t want to see Tavarez close out most of our games. Pick fights with Devil Rays, maybe, but not hold off tiny leads. I suppose I’ll have to deal with the idea of him as our fifth starter, which I guess is better in that he will be responsible for my stress every fifth day instead of every other day or so.

I took some pictures outside of Fenway Park this afternoon. By some I mean only three, as my memory card was already nearly full from a wedding I had attended the weekend previous. It didn’t really matter too much as Fenway is fugly right now as the snow has just started to melt and there’s a lot of construction everywhere. I suppose I could’ve taken pictures of the soon-to-be-opened Popeye’s, a chain I only recently learned that most New Englanders are not familiar with. The place is awesome, and they make KFC look like a fucking Whole Foods. I used to hit that place after high school and get their heart-stopping biscuits with my friend Spencer, who last I checked was a piano bar singer in Bethesda.

Anyway, the lack of substantive content is due to the fact that my league’s fantasy baseball draft is this Saturday. I am adrift in a sea of VLOOKUP and RANK Excel functions. I’ll let you know how it all broke down on Sunday.