knoblaugh

Reading a book about Ty Cobb. Surprisingly, seems that deliberate errors were commonplace in Cobb's day. Cobb himself was guilty of at least one. Cobb, being bullied by teammates including pitcher Ed Killian "finally repaid his sleights in kind, letting a ball hit off Matty's [Matt McIntyre] pal...Ed Killian...get by him in right field." Compare to modern day when such behavior is considered totally unacceptable. In evaluating Gary Sheffield's candidacy for the hall of fame, one sportswriter cited similar conduct as a reason not to vote in Sheffield. "Sheffield once admitted to purposefully making an error to prove a point, an act that, in the eyes at least one voter, makes him unworthy of a place in cooperstown".

The Rangers, even with Beltran and Lucroy, are probably overrated. They are one of only two teams with a winning record and a negative run differential. The other being my precious Yankees. In spite of this, William Hill is offering better odds to win the world series than the nationals or the indians, both with better records and way higher run differentials.

There has been a lot of buzz about the Dodgers strong showing the past 2 months since Kershaw got hurt. They're 24-16 since his last appearance (June 26). Compare this to the disaster scenario the experts (e.g. Buster Olney) anticipated after CK went down. How were they able to turn the corner? Two reasons: (1) luck and (2) more offense. The oft cited stat supporting the doomed thesis was their 27-34 record when CK was not starting vs. 14-2 when he was. B ut their run differential over that 27-34 stretch was a minuscule -3. 250 runs scored vs. 253 allowed. They should have been ~500 over that stretch not 3.5 games under. They got a little unlucky and looked worse than they were. Conversely, the Dodgers been some lucky, lucky ducks since losing CK. Their winning percentage is up: playing 600 ball (24-16) vs. their 530 win rate before. But, their run differential is down. +0.45 runs/game after vs. +0.52 before. They're playing worse but winning more. The other explanation...