Last night I was thinking about the PSU Child Rape Scandal. One of these days I’ll stop thinking about it, but I don’t know when that will be. One of the things that has stood out to me in this case is that there are multiple people who made mistakes and/or were involved in a cover-up. Any time this happens …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Carlos Zambrano
I was planning to do a few of these a week and I know berselius is going to help, but then Theo-mania started and I got sidetracked. I started thinking about doing them again and my first instinct was to start with some of the back-ups since I’d already done ones for Marlon Byrd, Randy Wells and Alfonso Soriano (player …
Terry Francona wants Cubs job?
Dave Van Dyck is reporting that a source close to Terry Francona is saying that Tito “deep down” badly wants to manage the Cubs. For his part, Francona says he is “trying to stay under the radar” with his unspoken candidacy, but a source very close to him says “deep down” he badly wants to manage the Cubs — for …
Penn State Sex Scandal
Figured since people are interested in discussing it that we may as well have a thread on Unobstructed Views about it so we don’t litter all the others with talk about old men raping children.
2012 Cubs Bill James Projections, Part 2
It’s Bill James week here at Obstructed View. We published the hitter’s projections a few days ago, our interview with Bill James and now the pitcher projections. I calculated the FIP. Pitcher W L G GS IP H HR BB SO ERA FIP Sean Marshall 5 4 78 0 75 71 6 21 65 3.24 3.43 Andrew Cashner 9 6 …
2012 Cubs Bill James Projections, Part 1
Over the years a lot of people have claimed that the Bill James projections are optimistic. In a straight player to player comparison it will often seem that way, but the league average of these projections is important to consider. For example, let’s consider a couple examples. Player A is projected to hit .330 wOBA, league average is .330 wOBAPlayer …
Superfriends admit a new member
Per Bruce Levine and other sources, the Superfriends have opened the Hall of Justice and added a new member to their ranks. Joe Bohringer has been hired as the Cubs director of pro scouting. Technically he’s taking on one of Tim Wilken’s roles, but it’s a responsibility that was largely handled by Randy Bush in the past. Bohringer had been …
Cubs managerial candidate test
The Cubs managerial candidates are going to be put to the test in their interviews with the Superfriends. This will be no ordinary interview where Jim Hendry asks them what their favorite donut flavor is, this is going to be some hard-hitting, real-life game situation stuff that will undoubtedly face the new Cubs manager once the season begins. Once again, …
The Keltner List and Sammy Sosa
I was reading the most recent article on Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight and he brought up the Keltner List. I had meant to do this for Sammy Sosa a few years, but completely forgot. So I'll do it now. Bill James came up with that back in 1985 and I'll let Wikipedia explain it: The Keltner list is a …
Yes you can measure intangibles
It’s popular for the anti-stats crowd to say that you can’t measure intangibles. Brian Burke explains how we already do measure intangibles. h/t to Tangotiger