In honor of the NFL Draft happening this week, this week’s Lighthearted Saturday Infographic is all about past NFL Mr. Irrelevants. Check out which final draft picks didn’t play in any NFL games and which have Superbowl rings!
I’d like to share this lovely infographic about coffee and caffeine consumption with you, but since this is a “sports” blog I’m going to do some Googling and tie this to sports before showing the graphic…
Caffeine is a performance-enhancing drug so I wonder if caffeine would ever be a banned substance in a sport. Probably not, as, according to Wikipedia, Caffeine has not often been baned:
Historically, coffee and thus caffeine was illegal for some classes in Mecca in parts of the 16th century, in the Ottoman empire, Charles II of England tried to ban it in 1676, Frederic II of Prussia banned it in 1777, and coffee was banned in Sweden in the years 1756-1769, 1794–1796, 1799–1802, and 1817-1823. The bans on coffee have often had religious, economic, or political reasons rather than being based on concerns for the well-being of the population.
There is, however, a medical study that examines the short-term effects of caffeine during “team sports.”
Caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world, commonly ingested in coffee, tea, soda, and energy drinks. Its ability to enhance muscular work has been apparent since the early 1900s. Caffeine typically increases endurance performance; however, efficacy of caffeine ingestion for short-term high-intensity exercise is equivocal, which may be explained by discrepancies in exercise protocols, dosing, and subjects’ training status and habitual caffeine intake found across studies. The primary aim of this review is to critically examine studies that have tested caffeine’s ability to augment performance during exercise dependent on nonoxidative metabolism such as sprinting, team sports, and resistance training. Blah blah boring words that don’t make sense to normal humans. Science!
So this baseball season the fine folks over at CBSSports.com have released their app development platform, or as they call it “CBSSports.com Development Center” to the masses this year. I’m a bit of a sucker when it comes to these kinds of things as I enjoy figuring out how technological things work. I’ve got some half-baked iPhone apps around here somewhere; as well as pile of barely used API keys for just about every service you can think of. Perhaps I should combine them all and make: a Google map with pins of your Fantasy baseball players and pictures of that day’s weather forecast that checks you in to foursquare while tweeting about it. I’m sure everyone will be shelling out the big bucks for that app. Right?
Actually, the reason I’m posting this is that I’ve actually completed the process of creating a little app for fantasy baseball. Introducing the Nerds on Sports Nickname App for CBSSports.com. Yup, I made an app that will display players nicknames. Some of the names are real, many are completely made up. For example the most recently added nickname is for Mark “Mayonnaise” Buehrle: That’s not a name that anyone (other than myself so far) is calling him, but I think it works well for a couple of reasons:
2) As a pitcher, he can be told to “put some Mayonnaise on it” instead of the usual slang of mustard.
See what interesting name/news tidbits you can learn from just a silly name? This is why I decided to create the app. Of course the list of players in the CBS Sports database is over 4500 players long, so if I really want to have tons of names, I need everyone’s help. That is why I created a suggestion box for new names. Please give me some new names — If you do, you’ll get to see your name in the app! Or perhaps, go spend the $1 to buy the app (You can sign up for a free league and buy just the app if you want to donate a (portion of a) dollar to me, if you do, please give me a good review ).
I’ve been reading some nerdy stuff on some other sites that I figure I can share here:
Unbeatable FreeCell – Here’s the story of one guy’s quest to prove that the author of the game was wrong when he wrote in the rules of the game that “It is believed (though not proven) that every game is winnable.” And how he attempted to solve all 32,000 hands.
Survey: Cubans disappointed in Ozzie – With the most unsurprising results (and story headline) ESPN take a poll of Cubans and their feeling on Ozzie saying that he is a fan of Fidel Castro.
And finally this little piece of the current suckitude of the RedSox. It is near to my heart as I have tickets to Friday’s Opening Day game.
Tickets anyone? – A sad look at the Sox sellout streak and how it may be coming to an end, and why ticket sales are down nearly 3% from last year.
Today is Baseball’s North American Opening Day — A sure sign that the summer should be here soon enough and that ESPN will no longer commit 80% of their airtime to replays of dunks and half-court shots. (Don’t you sometimes wish that the “world-wide leader in sports” would cover some world-wide sports highlights. I hear European Lawn Diving is in full swing right now.)
At the beginning of any sporting event the only thing, really, for one to do, is to predict the outcome of that event. I am not doing anything different, but I shall mix it up by coming up with crazy ways to make these predictions. This year I am going to predict the final standings of MLB based solely on team salary. Using the salary numbers from Baseball Prospectus, I’ve calculated the teams Cost Per Win (CPW) for last year. And based on this years salary (and a 4% inflation due to an overall increase in spending across the league) and that CPW, here is what we have:
American League
AL East
Wins
Loss
Tampa Bay Rays
123
39
Boston Red Sox
89
73
New York Yankees
89
73
Toronto Blue Jays
88
74
Baltimore Orioles
53
109
AL Central
Detroit Tigers
109
53
Kansas City Royals
106
56
Cleveland Indians
81
81
Chicago White Sox
55
107
Minnesota Twins
50
112
AL West
Texas Rangers
116
46
Los Angeles Angels
85
77
Seattle Mariners
51
111
Oakland Athletics
41
121
National League
NL East
Wins
Loss
Miami Marlins
115
47
Philadelphia Phillies
98
64
Washington Nationals
88
73
Atlanta Braves
77
85
New York Mets
45
117
NL Central
Milwaukee Brewers
101
61
St. Louis Cardinals
85
77
Cincinnati Reds
76
86
Pittsburgh Pirates
67
95
Chicago Cubs
51
111
Houston Astros
36
126
NL West
Arizona Diamondbacks
115
47
San Francisco Giants
84
78
San Diego Padres
74
88
Los Angeles Dodgers
62
99
Colorado Rockies
61
101
As you can tell by the crazy number of Wins attributed to the Rays, that I do not take into account a variable CPW, where the higher the win total the more it costs for additional wins. But even without that, I wonder how close to this outcome, standings-wise, we will see? Will the Royals be a wildcard team? How many teams will actually have 100+ wins (last year: 1)?
Want to make your own predictions? Go ahead and leave a comment and we can come back here in a few months and see.
It’s the weekend, so here’s a fun infographic I came across this week. I like this for 2 reasons: first it’s quite nerdy — being stats about gamers with an 8-bit theme, and second it really shows how picking and choosing some numbers you can make a case for just about anything.
In a recent decision, the NFL levied fines (by lowering their salary cap and distributing the difference to all other teams) against the Redskins and Cowboys because they set up contracts to take advantage of the no-cap season. Here is what the NFL said:
The Management Council Executive Committee determined that the contract practices of a small number of clubs during the 2010 league year created an unacceptable risk to future competitive balance, particularly in light of the relatively modest salary cap growth projected for the new agreement’s early years. To remedy these effects and preserve competitive balance throughout the league, the parties to the CBA agreed to adjustments to team salary for the 2012 and 2013 seasons. These agreed-upon adjustments were structured in a manner that will not affect the salary cap or player spending on a league-wide basis.
Basically, what happened was that teams (most of them, just these 2 more than others) front loaded player contracts — Payed a lot of money in the uncapped year in exchange for paying less in the capped years. There are a couple of issues here that I’d like to point out:
1) This happened in 2010 and was obvious to anyone who even glanced at the numbers. So much so that, supposedly, the NFL even warned these teams (verbally) that they shouldn’t be doing this. This penalty is only happening now.
2) Does this really create a big enough competitive imbalance in the league that it needs to be corrected.
For the first point, there was a whole CBA negotiation that happened last year (remember the lockout?) and the cap was set up, but there was no talk about the redistribution against the Cowboys/Redskins. Didn’t want to bring it up that some teams were willing and able to spend money and the others were probably colluding to keep salaries down. And now in 2012 when the calculation for the cap is being done based on last years revenue, it looked like it was going to go down. Well how do you explain that to players… you can’t. So with a quick “fix,” the “problem” is “solved.”
As to the second point, let’s look at the teams numbers for 2009, 2010, and 2011. That’s what’s good about the delay/inaction by the NFL on this issue. In our baseline year of 2009, the Cowboys were pretty good, making the playoffs but losing in the NFC championship game. On the other hand the Redskins went 4-12. In 2010 even while spending millions more than other teams, both teams went 6-10 and were at the bottom of the division. Last year the Cowboys were slightly improved at 8-8, but the Redskins were slightly worse at 5-11.
So compared to our baseline, the Cowboys had, on average, 4 less wins, and the Redskins had 1.5 more wins. Or, when combined, 2 and a 1/2 less wins. Or just looking 2009 and 2011 since front loading contracts should give more advantage in a capped year, the are a combined 2 less wins. So much imbalance!
But the tough question is to whether this would actually create a real imbalance in future years, and that would be tough to compare. This future imbalance is what dynasty/keeper fantasy commissioners (and the real NFL commissioner) have to deal with all the time with trades that involve future draft picks and young players. If you really were going for a perfect balance, a baseball trade involving a minor league player or any deadline trade involving future draft picks would never be allowed. Of course, trades like this actually happen and are justified by saying that the opportunity was there for all teams. Which brings me back to the uncapped year — an opportunity that was available to all teams. This ruling stinks of collusion and half-assed player pacification.
[T]he NFL claims that “the parties to the CBA” agreed on this punishment. Not the CBA itself, mind you, because there’s nothing in there. But the NFLPA signed off on the penalties, not because they agreed with them, but because they had no other choice. The only other option the NFL presented the Players Association was for the salary cap to drop across the league, meaning less money for the players. This was a devil’s bargain: sign off on this capricious and probably illegal sanction of two teams, or we’ll punish all of you. The NFLPA was straight blackmailed, and they did the only conscionable thing they could: they caved, and threw two of the biggest-spending owners under the bus.
In the Book of Genesis, God inexplicably created the tree of knowledge, then told humans not to touch it. “Because I said so,” I believe was the rationale. He made the fruit tempting, and gave humans the faculties to obtain and enjoy it, and got pissed when they did. It took a couple thousand years for people say, whoa, that was pretty cruel and fucked up, God. Similarly, the NFL created an uncapped year, and fostered an atmosphere that gave Dan Snyder and Jerry Jones the motive, the means, and the opportunity to partake of its blessings. The NFL doesn’t have religion’s PR, so thankfully we don’t need iconoclasts, just normal, rational people to point out just how wrong this is. But football is a sort of religion, with a similar antitrust exemption, so fair doesn’t even come into play.