Daily Facepalm 3.8.2012 – ST Cubs Not Entirely Depressing

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Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!

The Cubs brought their spring training record up to the .500 level with a win against the vaunted Kansas City Royals. Shut up, someone could vaunt about them. But yesterday the main vauntworthy performance came from Jeff Samardzija, who faced just nine batters in three shutout innings in his effort to join the best starting rotation in baseball in Chicago in the National League. Why not? As much as everyone in the universe not named Samardzija would love to see his disconcerting amarous gazes be confined to bullpen warmup balls, what other starting candidate would you be disappointed to see bumped from the rotation? Yeah, the list ends at Garza. This is the year of "Who cares?" Don't let the answer to that question be you.

Video that recently got our hopes up.

When the Cubs win it all, it might look like this, except with more nuclear fallout.

I know. You've seen it already. And yet, you may never see it.

Is the Daily Facepalm daily?

Don't be so literal.

Is there a Cubs game today?

Yes. Against the Mariners at 2:05 CT. You can listen to it. 

Line of the Day

I'm sure we'll be seeing more numbers just like this from F7.
  IP H  R  ER  BB  SO  HR  ERA 
Samardzija (W, 1-0) 3.0  1  0  0  0  3  0  0.00

Video I recently didn't die watching

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  7. Author
    AndCounting

    You guys are so dedicated to facepalm pictograms. It makes me want to [picture of grown man crying].

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  8. Berselius

    ACT wrote:

    I know some very conservative people who think marijuana should be legal.

    Oh, me too. I just didn’t think Pat Robertson was that flavor of conservative.

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  39. GBTS

    http://www.kfns.com/JoeSportsFan/Story.aspx?ID=1666423

    The commercial ends with a montage of simulated events that happened during last year’s MLB season. David Freese’s epic Game 6 HR against the Texas Rangers is strongly featured. We remember him celebrating while rounding first base, but we don’t remember him executing a Karate Kid crane kick.

    Guess we’ll have to go back and watch Game 6. Again. We can do that because, you know, that game actually happened.

    (dying laughing) Ouch.

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  40. WaLi

    @ Berselius:
    Good read. Found this funny:

    the Cubs have a roster that can put together a strong stretch of 90 games.

    It’s a shame the season is 162 games long

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  44. Berselius

    mb21 wrote:

    And reliable. I never make any decisions without first consulting Yahoo Answers. If I want to know whether or not I should invest $10,000 here or there, I go to Yahoo.

    I suggest that you give that money to me.

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  46. mb21

    mikeingram93
    @dmick89 really? this made up “issue” is important to you? I assume you unfollowed Bill Maher and boycotted his spnnsors long ago?

    No idea who this person is, but the made up “issue” is the Rush Limbaugh issue. Apparently it’s only been made up. it did not happen. (dying laughing)

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  48. Aisle424

    mb21 wrote:

    No idea who this person is, but the made up “issue” is the Rush Limbaugh issue. Apparently it’s only been made up. it did not happen. (dying laughing)

    It was simulated by the same people that simulated the Cubs winning the World Series.

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  50. josh

    @ mb21:
    I kind of figured that. I’ve seen several of these retorts to the Rush Limbaugh hubbaloo, and they always revolve around Bill Maher, as though the whole world is either Rush Limbaugh or Bill Maher.

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  54. Bottleasmoke

    The funniest Limbsugh hullabaloo is about his being named to the Missourian hall of fame. Everyone knows he doesn’t belong in there until Ike Turner gets in.

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  72. WaLi

    Does anyone else have problems with MLB radio feed coming in for only a few moments then stopping? I thought it was just at work but it happened at home. Also Gameday or the radio doesn’t always load.

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  84. WaLi

    @ EnricoPallazzo:
    No… I don’t think so. My work computer sucks though. And I think I clicked on allowing the 3d flash thing that popped-up originally but I don’t know how to undo that.

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  86. Berselius

    This is much better than it used to be, even going back to (most) ST parks last year. Typically they would just dump all the info at the end of the inning, and wouldn’t have any pfx data. If a player put the ball in play, it recorded just a single strike, all strikeouts were 3 pitches, all walks were 4.

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  98. mb21

    No big deal about Marmol. Volstad and Samardzija will be going 9 each time out allowing 0 runs so he’ll have limited action this year.

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  101. ACT

    @ mb21:
    The Cubs may have to adopt the Nolan Ryan philosophy of keeping starters in the game. The less we see of this bullpen, the better.

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  108. Rice Cube

    The radio dude is talking about ballparks. I agree with his assessment that AT&T is one of the best parks in baseball while the Oakland Coliseum is pure shit.

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  117. josh

    @ uncle dave***:
    I don’t know. I mean, you have to factor in the cost of driving from Champaign, IL to Oakland, CA. I don’t know much about the area, too. I’m just saying I wouldn’t want to get stabbed for $2 tickets.

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  118. WenningtonsGorillaCock

    josh wrote:

    I’ve never met anyone who actually admitted attending an A’s game.

    Like Wyoming, the Oakland Coliseum doesn’t exist. Have you ever been there? No. Do you know anybody who has ever been there? No. Doesn’t exist.

    /Garfield’d

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  119. Aisle424

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  122. rattier

    BreedCubbieBlue plug and lame BCB nickname dissemination from Len Casper and Other Guy. I wonder, does that negate the advantage of Len’s stat leaning nature?

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  126. rattier

    @ Mish:
    (dying laughing)
    Yeah he seems like an odd guy, as SK’s picture demonstrates. I guess as a broadcaster I neither really love or really hate him. He’s better than having an idiot in there, but then again, being better than Brenly isn’t hard.

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  127. Suburban kid

    Len is smart but he dumbs himself down a little which is frustrating. He also seemed to be in a huge rut the last couple of years and got very boring.

    I used to only be underwhelmed by his calling of big plays, but recently (i.e. 20010-11-ish) his patter has become really tedious.

    I still very much like him but I know he could do better.

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  132. Aisle424

    Someone found this blog by searching: “does anthony rizzo have what it takes to be a great major league pitcher”

    I’m going to go out on a limb and say no.

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  133. Rodrigo Ramirez

    I think it was a problem with cookies being disabled on my iPhone. I turned them on and was able to sign in. Thanks, though.

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  134. Rodrigo Ramirez

    I also found out through that process that I cannot switch off the mobile theme without being signed in. Just an FYI

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  141. Rodrigo Ramirez

    Aisle424 wrote:

    Just read his twitter feed. I’m almost speechless. I wonder what kind of drugs he’s taking because nobody sober could compose such insanity.

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  142. josh

    Len talks about Fangraphs and stuff more now than he used to. I wonder if he’s not hamstrung by his producers or something. Like they won’t let him do more, because he seems like he knows way more about baseball and advanced stats than he is saying.

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  143. Rodrigo Ramirez

    MB- are there general requirements for avatar photos? Sorry to keep asking you random questions.

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  144. GW

    Am I the only person who finds fangraphs/sabremetrics mentions from the broadcasting booth to be, for the most part, awkward and distracting? I think that it could be done well, I just don’t know that it ever has. When I’m watching a game, the last thing that I want is an evangelist doing the play-by-play.

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  153. josh

    @ GW:
    I think it could be done well, if it was assumed, like for RBI and AVG, that the listener knew what the announcer was talking about. He could throw out there things like “Well, his ERA has been high this year, at 4.33, but his advanced metrics show him as maintaining a good performance in what he can control, and suffering from a little bad luck and poor defense along the way. If you’re interested, his FIP has held steady this season at 2.75. Hopefully the team can back him up a little better and reward a good performance today.” I’m just saying it could be done non-evangelically. When Len does it, he tends to overemphasize it, like he’s talking to an extremely ornery elderly person with bad hearing. “I was reading FANGRAPHS DOT COM the other day, and ….”

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  154. Rice Cube

    @ josh:
    I think if you can put it in the proper context, it would work fine. The problem is how much time you want to use to make a point effectively. There are something like 15-20 seconds between plays and pitches, though, so if they do it right, they can squeeze in a pretty good impromptu lesson. If they just say “Fangraphs” (like you said) then it lacks context. I think most of the time Len references Fangraphs he’s talking about pitch selection by a given pitcher. I don’t recall him talking about FIP or BABIP or WAR.

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  157. Rodrigo Ramirez

    @ mb21:

    OK thanks. I was more curious about size or pixel ratio. As well as resolution.

    But I found a photo that works well.

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  158. mb21

    @ GW:
    It doesn’t bother me, but it doesn’t excite me either. I’d rather that Len spend more time telling us where the fielders are, letting us know at what point someone is up in the pen and who it may be, and other things that are relevant to the game, but I don’t care if he mixes in some talk about sabermetrics.

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  160. josh

    @ mb21:
    That’s true. I noticed Len’s play-by-play on the radio is a little better this Spring. Last Spring he was basically PBPing like you could see what he could see. I’m just saying, if they’re going to do pregame type analysis, or in-game mention of stats, it would be cool if they said something more interesting than “He’s batting .500 through the first two games of this month.”

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  161. josh

    @ mb21:
    It would get me excited if they quit pawing at the same stupid non-stats like “batting average in the month of May” and stuff like that. Of course, Bob tends to drag the discussion down to his level, so that doesn’t help.

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  162. Rice Cube

    @ mb21:
    I agree with this. Except in the case of a super-exaggerated shift they rarely talk about fielder positioning on TV. Sometimes they talk about how the corner infielders are playing in to field a potential bunt, but that’s about it.

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  163. mb21

    josh wrote:

    it would be cool if they said something more interesting than “He’s batting .500 through the first two games of this month.”

    Definitely. That’s actually where I’d focus. Tell me what the guy’s wOBA is. Explain that. you’ve already talked about stats on Fangraphs so why not? Stop telling me so and so is hitting .387 with runners on 2nd and 3rd in the 7th inning on Tuesday night games in Atlanta.

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  164. ACT

    @ mb21:
    I don’t need to hear about things like wOBA when I’m watching a game (I can look it up if I’m curious), and I doubt most viewers could care less. That said, I’d definitely do away with junk like RISP stats.

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  165. mb21

    @ Rice Cube:
    Yeah, they’ve gotten away from giving that info. I don’t need it every pitch, but sometimes they’ll pan out to show some idiot fan and I’ll notice that the CF and LF are playing are shading the batter to LF. This tells me something and it’s something I think the play by play guy should point out from time to time. It tells me that the batter is more likely to hit the ball to that side of the field. Either the batter has that tendency or the pitcher is pitching in a way to accomplish that (or both).

    I realize that I’m one of the few people that complains about this, but it’s simple information that provides far more value than telling me the guy hits well in 2-0 counts in day games.

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  166. ACT

    I mean, I’m in favor of flashing stats on the screen, but we don’t need anything as fancy as wOBA (which most people don’t understand, anyway). A hitter’s triple-slash line is good enough as far as rate stats go.

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  167. mb21

    @ ACT:
    I don’t need to hear it either, but you change people’s tendencies to rely on certain stats by relying on other stats. Batting average as a measure of performance is outdated, but announcers still use it in that way. It remains popular among fans because announcers continue to use an outdated metric. All I’m saying is that if they’re going to talk about batting average, I’d much rather it be wOBA.

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  168. mb21

    @ ACT:
    I don’t want batting average included. It’s useless. They may as well tell me what color boxers the guy is wearing. People focus on average because it’s the first of the 3 rate stats. The average fan isn’t going to remember .285/.340/.475. They’ll remember .285.

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  169. Rice Cube

    I think the commentators do refer to “luck” a lot though, with things like lucky bounces, bloop doubles, flares that just get over the middle infielder’s head, and smoked liners that are caught by a guy who was at the right place at the right time. It might not be too difficult to work BABIP into the commentary.

    I think information such as pitch selection is cool too. The Bloomberg stream of their new product that they were adapting for the Cubs had a pitch sequencer that showed a pitcher’s tendencies at each count and was broken down into inning. That might be information overload for WGN-TV, but with almost a minute to kill between batters, they might have time for one or two of those a game.

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  170. ACT

    @ mb21:
    BA is descriptive. A .250/.350/.450 hitter is different from a .300/.350/.450 hitter. Also, it’s useful in certain situations, for instance, when there’s a runner in scoring position with 2 outs, you want the higher BA hitter, all else being equal.

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  171. Rice Cube

    @ mb21:
    In 2002, when the Giants went to the World Series, they showed a slash line of Bonds and I think his OBP was something like .560 (it was ridiculous). Most people don’t remember .340 because it’s not that impressive. In the five seconds it took the commentators (I want to say it was still Kuiper and Krukow) to explain that Bonds was on base more than half the time, even though I didn’t know as much about baseball at the time, I knew it was a good thing. I think the commentators just have to try to sell a stat better, and people will listen.

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  172. mb21

    ACT wrote:

    Also, it’s useful in certain situations, for instance, when there’s a runner in scoring position with 2 outs, you want the higher BA hitter, all else being equal.

    Show the guy’s wOBA throughout the game and when they’re in that situation, tell us why a higher batting average guy is a better option than a low average guy.

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  174. ACT

    @ Rice Cube:
    Pitchers and managers got so cowardly facing Bonds. It was ridiculous. I’d like to think that MLB FO’s have gotten saber-savvy enough that if another Bonds came along, he would not be walked so often by opposing teams.

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  176. ACT

    @ mb21:
    Giving the slash line tells us more than how good he is; it gives us a rough idea of what to expect. e.g., if there’s a lot of daylight between his BA and his OBP, the hitter probably draws a lot of walks. Also, showing the guy’s wOBA would be interesting/informative to about 12 people.

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  177. Rice Cube

    @ ACT:
    Only a third of his walks were intentional methinks. It was still ridiculous though. He literally wouldn’t swing if the pitch was just a hair out of the strike zone. I mean, even if you know then what you know now, would YOU pitch to Bonds? (dying laughing) I know the answer to the question is “probably” but you still have to be super careful, which goes without saying. Dude was an asshole but is still one of my favorite all-time players because he was just so damn good.

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  179. ACT

    @ Rice Cube:
    I remember how he used to feature prominently in “most overrated” polls. I always thought, “How can he be overrated if everyone thinks he’s overrated?” I much preferred him to Griffey. I never cared much about player likeability. Hell, I was the only member of the Kevin Brown Fan Club.

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  180. mb21

    @ ACT:
    It tells us that, but it doesn’t tell the average fan that. And like you said with wOBA, I can look that other information up. Actually, I probably already have a damn good idea what it is. When the average person sees the avg/obp/slg, all he’s remembering is the avg. He’ll look at the other numbers, but he’s remembering one of them. The question, at least to me, is what’s a better metric of production because right now average is being used as that by the average Joe. Is average better or is wOBA better?

    Will the average fan understand wOBA? No, but he’ll have a good idea what average is. He’ll know where guys like Votto and Pujols are. He’ll know where guys like Koyie Hill are.

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  181. mb21

    I think Bonds is such an unusual talent that I’m not sure he’d be pitched to any differently than he was throughout his career. I’m sure we could look at last season to get an idea, but I’m going to bed. It just seems to me that the best hitters last year were pitched around just as Bonds was. One of the big differences between some of those guys and Bonds is that Bonds had the best eye at the plate I’ve ever seen. It was like the guy could tell if the ball was 1 inch outside when it left the pitcher’s hand. Crazy.

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  182. Rice Cube

    @ mb21:
    I recall one of his seasons he had more homers than strikeouts. That was awesome. I don’t have his stats up but I’m almost sure he walked twice as much as he struck out, and quick possibly had almost as many homers as strikeouts.

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  183. ACT

    @ mb21:
    OBP and SLG are stats the average fan understands and knows how to calculate. I knew what they were when I was a kid. They’re very easy to understand and calculate. You don’t need to look up a bunch of coefficients to calculate them. Putting something like wOBA on the screen would require a lot of explanation, and most people don’t care enough to find out. I say, put purely descriptive numbers on the screen and leave the fancy run estimators to Fangraphs.

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  185. ACT

    Really, I think the worst thing you can do is give someone a number they don’t understand and say, “Take it on faith. Trust me, it works!” Sabermetrics should never be faith-based.

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  187. Rice Cube

    @ ACT:
    I approach SABR stats with a degree of skepticism, but I know a fair amount of people who will quote fWAR like it was gospel despite the fact that it seems to rely too heavily on UZR and other things I don’t really understand as well as you that may not be as reliable as they should be.

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  190. Rice Cube

    Feel free to post this in an unOV later on if it’s too political or whatever, but I was wondering what some of you guys who have served in the military thought of this:

    http://nymag.com/news/features/danny-chen-2012-1/

    My wife showed me this article and I was like WTF. As a first-gen Asian-American I had thought about joining the military when I graduated high school but ended up going to college and doing what I’m doing now instead. It was really shocking to me that stuff like this still happens, but I’m just wondering how truly surprised I should be.

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  191. josh

    @ mb21:
    This is a good point. The camera can’t show all angles, and it would be helpful if the announcers actually gave us some insight into the strategy. Problem is a guy like Bob Brenly will start to do that, then end giving his opinion on the strategy, how he would never do that shift and blah blah blah. They need fewer baseball guys in the announcer booth, and more experienced commentators.

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  192. josh

    Do you guys feel weird at an actual game, like you’re not really sure what’s going on? It’s strange how used to the angles, the close-ups, all that you get. Once I cheered accidentally when the other team made a good play (I think it was the Brewers). I felt pretty stupid.

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  195. mb21

    @ ACT:
    The announcers are giving the fans numbers they don’t understand the entire game. There aren’t too many people in the stands or watching on tv who could calculate SLG and wouldn’t have any idea where to begin with OBP. ISO would be a much easier statistic for the average fan to grasp than SLG. They might even remember it, but they’re not going to remember SLG.

    I don’t have a problem with giving us numbers the fans aren’t going to understand. They already do it. That we can easily make sense of them and assume the average person understands doesn’t mean that they actually do. Based on the anger directed at various players throughout the season I don’t think it could it be any more clear that the numbers the fans are being given are telling them absolutely nothing about the game.

    All that said, it doesn’t really matter to me what they tell us. Unless I’m watching the Dodgers or Yankees the volume is usually turned down. I don’t really like the Yankees announcers, but they’re a damn good team.

    That’s my 2 cents anyway.

    If the average fan remembers any numbers that represent a player’s talent level it’s going to be the number of home runs he’s hit.

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  196. ACT

    mb21 wrote:

    There aren’t too many people in the stands or watching on tv who could calculate SLG and wouldn’t have any idea where to begin with OBP. ISO would be a much easier statistic for the average fan to grasp than SLG. They might even remember it, but they’re not going to remember SLG.

    I disagree on both points. I knew about OBP and SLG as a kid and I’ve talked about OBP and SLG with casual fans who’ve never heard of linear weights. I’m also baffled about ISO being easier than SLG. Finding coefficients for SLG is simplicity itself: 1 base = 1, 2 bases = 2, etc. SLG was the first rate stat I learned after batting average.

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  199. mb21

    @ Mish:
    At this point I don’t even know why he’d address the Brenly comments again. They were directed at him so whatever, but he’d be better off just leaving those alone.

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  204. josh

    @ ACT:
    I’m more with MB on this one. I still don’t really get SLG. It just doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve try to remember what it means, and while I get the numbers involved, it’s difficult to see the point. ISO has more immediacy, to me. I at least feel like I understand it when I look at the numbers. BA is so ingrained, but rarely questioned. I know exactly what it means, but not why one guy might hit .250 and not be a bad hitter. I do like OBP, and I’m starting to get my head around wOBA, at least in terms of getting a feel for what the numbers mean.

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  206. mb21

    ACT wrote:

    I’m also baffled about ISO being easier than SLG.

    It’s easier in the way that OPS is easier. OPS=OBP+SLG. ISO=SLG-AVG.

    ACT wrote:

    I knew about OBP and SLG as a kid and I’ve talked about OBP and SLG with casual fans who’ve never heard of linear weights.

    I’m not saying you have to explain linear weights. Nobody has taken time to explain that the formula for OPS is actually much more difficult than the formula for wOBA. Fans already take the numbers they’re being shown in the way you don’t want them to. Just look around. Average rules. RBI is still super important and tells us how good a hitter is.

    Why? Because they’re being shown these numbers over and over. I guess I don’t care if a person doesn’t understand how to calculate something. If what’s being shown is being used in the wrong way then it’s more than enough reason for me to want to show them something superior. I don’t understand why we wouldn’t want superior stats shown to the fans.

    ACT wrote:

    Also, it’s useful in certain situations, for instance, when there’s a runner in scoring position with 2 outs, you want the higher BA hitter, all else being equal.

    You would want the higher batting average guy in that situation since everything else is equal, but what if they are not? It’s the 4th inning of a game. Let’s say it’s 2-2. Runner on 2nd, 1 out. Who do you want at the plate? A guy who hits .300/.335/.385 or someone who hits .250/.375/.450?

    Maybe in the 9th inning of a tie game you just might prefer the .300 hitter, but that’s about the only time I can think of. And me personally? I’d prefer the .250/.375/.450 hitter in that 9th inning.

    This really isn’t a big issue though. I feel like we’ve wasted time talking about something I really couldn’t care less about (pretty sure you couldn’t either). It’s just my preference, but nothing more than that. I see no point in continuing to show batting average. If you want to talk about the guy’s average, do so in ways that modern announcers talk about OPS or something. Or ignore it entirely. Aside from wanting to see a batter who is hitting .299 break .300 I never pay attention to batting average to begin with. I pay attention to that in the same way I pull for a guy with 19 HR, .349 OBP, .478 SLG, .348 wOBA and other such stats. The only reason I ever include it in stuff I write here or previously on ACB is that far too many fans think they know what it means. To me, it’s a waste of lights at the stadium, waste of pixels on my tv screen, waste of ink in the newspaper and waste of time in online box scores.

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  207. mb21

    @ Mish:
    Especially not when he’s already made an ass of himself doing it. Get over it. I don’t think any intelligent fan gives a shit what Bob Brenly says anyway and you’re not going to convince the ones who care what he says.

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