Getting ready for Gibbons Redux

Spending Christmas Day very productively (and celebrating my receipt from Santa of the 2013 Bill James Handbook), I wondered what we could expect in terms of managerial behaviour from the return of John Gibbons to the Blue Jays.

My approach was to look at the data from 2004 - 2012. This takes in:

• the First Gibbons Era (50 games in 2004, full seasons 2005 - 2007, and 74 games in 2008)
• the Gaston Restoration (88 games in 2008 and all of 2009 and 2010)
• the Farrell Interregnum (full seasons in 2011 and 2012).

I used the managers' statistics from the 2013 Handbook (except for Gibbons, who appears only in the 2012 Handbook).  For the counting statistics, I normalized the partial seasons in 2004 and 2008 to 162-game equivalents.  I also took a look at win-loss statistics compared with MLB.com's expected win-loss numbers for each of the relevant years.

Some interesting, and slightly scary, trends and patterns appear.

• Gibbons underperformed the expected win-loss figures for four of his five years with the team - every year except 2006, when his team went 87-75 against an expected 86-76.  He actually managed to be sub-.500 in three of his five years when the expected figures would have had the team over .500 four of the five years.  By contrast, Cito slightly overperformed in 2008 and 2010 (but managed in 2009 to take a team that "should have" been 84-78 to a 75-87 record).  Farrell was pretty much where the expected win-loss predicted in his two years with the team - 81-81 in 2011 with a team expected to be 79-83, but 73-89 last year with a team that was expected to be 74-88.
• In terms of numbers of different lineups used, Gibbons and Farrell are surprisingly similar.  On a normalized basis, Gibbons used 131 different lineups in each of 2007 and 2008 - exactly the same number as Farrell used in each of 2011 and 2012.  Both of them used a lot more different lineups than Cito - normalized, Cito used 120 different lineups in 2008, 105 in 2009 and 103 in 2010 - the three lowest figures in the period since 2004.  [Gaston's 120 in 2008 is tied with Gibbons in 2006 for third lowest.]
• Gibbons used way more pinch-hitters than either Gaston or Farrell.  In his five years, the lowest number he used was 112 in 2006 - by contrast, Cito's high-water mark was 66 in 2008 (normalized) and Farrell used 64 and 94 respectively in his two years.  The three managers were reasonably comparable in their use of pinch-runners.
• Gibbons likes the defensive substitution - he averaged 31 substitutions a year in his five years, as against 19 for Farrell (22 in 2011 and 16 in 2012).  Cito averaged 29 but that number is biased way up from his normalized 55 in 2008 - he used 18 and 13 respectively in 2009 and 2010.  
• A bit surprisingly, the three managers were reasonably comparable in their handling of pitchers.  Gibbons had a quick hook his first three years with the Jays (the three highest figures of the period) but moderated a lot in 2007 and 2008. Cito was less likely to bring out the hook in 2008 and 2009 but his 51 quick hooks in 2010 were more than either of the Farrell years (40 and 49).  Gibbons was slightly less likely to be slow with the hook than Farrell, and more likely to let his relievers go on consecutive days (average 82 times a year in the five years, as opposed to Farrell's 73, albeit made up of one year of 62 and one of 84).
• Gibbons was less likely to go with the stolen base attempt than Farrell (but more likely than Cito), and much less likely to put runners on the move.  Farrell had the runners moving 181 times in 2011 and 211 times in 2012 - Gibbons never sent the runners more than 152 times in any of his five years (and that was normalized 2004, far above his average).
• Gibbons pitched out a lot more than Farrell - he averaged 42 pitchouts in each of the five years, while Farrell only called 22 in 2011 and 15 in 2012.  Gibbons also loved the intentional walk, averaging 42 of those a year too against Farrell's 24.

Of course, a lot of this sort of comparison depends on the type of team a manager is dealing with, so we'll see how Gibbons chooses to use the big-ticket horses that AA has given him - but overall we should expect more managerial intervention and maybe a less go-go style.  I'm looking forward to the Brett Lawrie fireworks on that subject.

Jays - how I'd bat 'em

In honour of the first spring training game, here's how I would bat the Jays' current lineup, and some reasons why.

1. Yunel Escobar, SS
2. Kelly Johnson, 2B
3. Jose Bautista, RF
4. Adam Lind, 1B
5. Brett Lawrie, 3B
6. Edwin Encarnacion, DH
7. Colby Rasmus, CF
8. Eric Thames, LF
9. J.P. Arencibia, C

Escobar bats leadoff by default - apart from Lawrie and Bautista, he's the only legit OBP threat on the team. It really deprives the Jays of a SB threat at the top of the order, which is OK if Johnson can step up. Johnson and Lind are both players who need to show good things early this year. Johnson would be a good second hitter if he can get on base and show he can hit strategically - without a lot of power, he drops way down the order if he can't do that. Lind bats behind Bautista to get that righty/lefty sequence working, but he has to at least show enough power early on to merit that - if both he and Lawrie repeat last year, there's no way not to move Lawrie to fourth and Lind's job has to be in question overall.

Encarnacion is a hard call. I like him behind Lawrie because of Lawrie's speed, but he needs to hit like the end of 2011 consistently to stay up in sixth. Right now, Encarnacion, Thames and Rasmus could bat in any order depending on situation and how the spring looks. JPA has to bat ninth as things sit, but hopefully continues to develop as a hitter and starts to challenge that - the flashes have definitely been there.

Overall, this exercise creates some good excitement going into the spring - this could be a very good lineup. It's a nice balance of players, and lots of them could do well. As always, there will be surprises good and bad! Go Jays.

Koufax vs.... Hudson??

A tweet from Jonah Keri today made me look this up to be sure, but it's true: as of this moment the career W/L records of Sandy Koufax and Tim Hudson are identical (165-87). A quick trip to Baseball-Reference.com gives you some additional interesting comparison points:

- both have exactly 12 years of MLB time in. [Of course, Hudson's stats are more consistent.]

- Koufax has 52 more games pitched (397-345), but 30 fewer starts (314-344). [This is because of Koufax's relief pitching - he finished 44 games and has 9 saves!]

- because of the different eras, there's no comparison on CG or shutouts (Koufax 137/40, Hudson 23/11).

- Koufax, however, has only 36 more career innings (or 1.6%) more than Hudson.

- no comparison on strikeouts, naturally ... but hit batsmen are interesting. Koufax - 18. Hudson - 84!

- finally, the most interesting point. Koufax has a much lower career ERA, 2.76 to 3.42. But when you look at ERA+ (which measures ERA compared to league ERA) they're very close. Koufax 131, Hudson 128.

Before going through this exercise, I'd have said you were nuts to mention these two in the same sentence. Looking at the numbers, I'm not so sure. The W/L is a cool coincidence... but maybe more respect is due Mr. Hudson.

HR vs. strikeouts

This post on baseball-reference.com is great, listing seasons in which a player had fewer strikeouts than HR (and at least 20 HR). The post points out that it's only been done 45 times in total and twice since 1956 (Brett in 1980, Bonds in 2004), but two other things hit me - (1) the number of legendary Yankees appearing multiple times on this list (Dickey, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Berra) and (2) Ted Kluszewski did it four seasons in a row from 1953-1956 - 40, 49, 47 and 35 HR and 34, 35, 40 and 31 strikeouts respectively. Adam Dunn, you have something to shoot for!

Band Name

Hello everyone, just wondering if you like this band name for a heavy metal band - Dümlaut!

氏エップと計算

私の父は私に何かをhttp://blog.familyofrock.com/ピーターフ レーム、音楽ジャーナリストによって書かれたからグランジファミリーツリーと呼ば示したように私はこのバンドにほとんど偶然だった。彼らはリスト知られてい るの上部にあるすべてのグランジ音楽の父としている。このバンドは、マーク アーム（マッドハニー、グリーンリバー）ジェフスミス、トッドモリーと、弟のダレンモリーの構成。ボー カルのマークアーム、ジェフスミスリードギターに、トッドモリーベースに、ダレンモリードラム。マークアームは彼のベルビュー高校数学教師氏エップからインスピレーションを得て、このバンドを始めた。彼らは酔っぱらったアウトギター、彼らはおそらくすべての問題をそれにしようとした解決しないと思ったものをからかった 低単調な歌の傾向を開始した。それがyoutubeに74elcaminohef私は彼らの音楽に耳を傾けることが できたことがないしていました、研究の時間を行って、彼らはすべてのツアーをやっていればどこから来たのを理解しようとしたら、私は何を実現、彼らはほと んど、存在する。そのHefにあなたにその歓 声！このバンドは70年代後半に結成されたが、バンドのほとんどがまだ生きている今日です。唯 一の人は誰が音楽業界でのキャリアを維持知ってseveralバンドだったマークアームみられ、マッドハニーsuchとして（最も顕著な）グリーンリ バー、スローマッシュと"サウンドに他の多くの貢献シアトル"。私はビデオへのリンクが含まれます。

Desperate. Not boring, though.: Mr. Epp and the Calculations

Desperate. Not boring, though.: Mr. Epp and the Calculations
http://www.youtube.com/user/74elcaminohef#p/c/13C88A385FB67405/3/3DpoOFOvx_o

Mr. Epp and the Calculations

I came upon this band almost by accident as my Father showed me something called the Grunge family tree from http://blog.familyofrock.com/ written by Peter Frame, a music journalist. They are at the top of the list known to be the father of all Grunge music. This Band consisted of Mark Arm (Mudhoney, Green River) Jeff Smith, Todd Morey, and his brother Darren Morey. Mark Arm on vocals, Jeff Smith on Lead guitar, Todd Morey on bass, Darren Morey on drums. Mark Arm started this band with the inspiration from his Bellevue High School maths teacher, Mr. Epp. They started the trend of fuzzed out guitars and low toneless singing that made fun of anything that they thought couldn't possibly solve any problem that it was trying to. After doing hours of research, trying to figure out where they came from, if they had done any tours, I realized something, they hardly existed, if it wasn't 74elcaminohef on youtube I would have never been able to listen to their music. So cheers to you on that Hef! This band was formed in the late 70's but most of the band is still alive today. The only person I know who kept a career in the music industry was Mark Arm, who was in several bands such as Mudhoney(the most notable) Green River, the Thrown Ups and many other contributors to the "Sound of Seattle". I will include a link to the video.

Alright Everyone be on the lookout for more posts about obscure bands. Most recently that I will do will be Mr. Epp and the Calculations, Limp Richerds and K733. I will also translate these to please our Brazilian and Japanese visitors!

Sorry, Adobe

I love Adobe's products, and wish I could afford more of them. And kudos to them for surviving so long in the quick-turnover world of technology.

However, the text below was in a promotional email I just received.

"From Blah to Aha! Ten Best Practices for the Virtual Classroom
Discover how to repurpose face-to-face classroom delivery with engaging,
facilitated online learning."

No one who is capable of perpetrating that prose should ever -ever! - be allowed near a classroom of any kind. No matter what they're "repurposing", "delivering" or "facilitating".

Floral Interlude

Now that I'm finished trashing cellphone companies, I have to admit that the new phone is pretty cool.

While visiting the town of the Hammers last weekend, we ended up at the Mum Show (which is what you might expect), and here I was with no camera.

But wait! My phone takes pictures!

Ok, there was some consternation with respect to getting the pictures off the phone and onto the computer, but with the magic of Bluetooth, I would now like to bring you some lovely floral offerings. Above we have a cow made entirely of Mums. Pretty cute. Also some greenhouse pictures and a large display of Mums. I never knew there was such a variety. Pretty good pictures for a cellphone, eh?

The Cellphone Saga - Chaper 1

...In which Little Red Riding Hood takes her kids cellphone shopping and turns into the Big Bad Wolf.

In response to the fact that the current contract had expired and that the kids were "totally embarrassed" by having "old clunky" cellphones, L'Hood decided to upgrade. The problem being that L'Hood and retail don't mix at the best of times. And the retail cellphone experience is definitely the worst of times.

As the kids, then, slowly back away, anxiously awaiting the Woodsman's appearance to "take care of" what used to be Little Red Riding Hood, but now resembles a crimson-fanged Wolf howling imprecations at Best Buy and Telus, let us take a moment to reflect on how this happened.

Telus apparently does not use the English language in the same way as most of us, and has a unique interpretation of the word "shared". Their "Share Plans" may look like a good deal, but in fact are not "shared" at all, since each phone owner/used must have his/her own plan. This confused and enraged Little Red Riding Hood, who uses the word "share" in what, I believe, is the more common English meaning.

Secondly, not being made of money, L'Hood wanted free phones for all. Many minutes were spent at the Telus display at Best Buy negotiating with children who had varying needs in terms of cellphone ownership. Once the decision was made, L'Hood bravely asked for three of the same, $0.00 phones. Naturally, they had only two. So, a second choice was offered. They had only none. L'Hood gave up and spent $50.00 on the third cellphone.

While in prison, L'Hood had time to reflect that what went wrong in this experience, and decided that it was a fundamental disconnect in value systems. L'Hood expected Best Buy and Telus to care what she, the customer, wanted, and to provide it. Best Buy and Telus expected L'Hood to lust after cool gadgetry without regard for price.

Perhaps surprisingly, or not, I think Dilbert illustrates it well in this cartoon. We as humans are almost completely self-involved and love what we have created more than we love what God has created. God, in whatever form you choose to conceive of Him, including potentially a particle, has created people. People have created much stuff for themselves, because they are clever, and curious, and creative, and in many cases think they can make a fast buck, which is another human creation. However, because we love our own creations more, we are often happy to remove the messy messy people from our nice clean process.

Despite marketing campaigns claiming to value human dignity, the process, or the product, rather than the human, becomes the point. Yet almost all processes and products, created by humans for humans, are necessarily arbitrary and artificial. We actually really need very few things. Therefore, by creating within ourselves an arbitrary and artificial need for a cool gadgetry, we allow ourselves to become captive to the machinations of, in this case, cellphone hell. So, in other words, it's our own fault.

Now, I know that many people in North America don't have a problem with this. We are, by and large, a consumer culture. And I myself am certainly not immune to the siren call of stuff. I just think that there could be less product, less process, and more time for human dignity.

Stay tuned as Little Red Riding Hood goes looking for affirmation in the religious, rather than secular church. Should be good.

Announcing....

Thank you for your votes and comments.

I can now proudly announce that the little dude's name is officially....

Tucker!

However, he's still occasionally known as Turkey Bite and Little Dude, although these seem to be giving way to Fubrox. Not sure why - he just looks like a Fubrox. Also, he acts like a Fubrox.

Tucker is easier to explain to the vet, though.

Cheers!

Salute to Brazil

We interrupt the feline-fest briefly for a nod to our Brazilian friends. For some reason, this little blog has picked up significant traffic from Brazil lately - some sort of embedded Brazilian Portuguese cuss word? Anyway, on this blog:
- we love Romario and hope his next political ambition is mayor of Toronto;
- we're happy to be able to generate our own Brazilian national team football shirt;
- and speaking of that team, who can't love them?

Name teh kitteh!

By popular demand, may we be allowed to present.....

The newest member of our household!

He's small, he's cute, he's destructive, he types rude words on the computer, and he may be breaking the law, it's ????

For reasons too complex to enunciate, Emma prefers the name "Turkey Bite". Myself, I prefer "Alfie". Other suggestions include "Mr. Darcy", "Tangelo", "Augie", "Li'l Abner", "Meow", "the Fubrox" and "Huffy J. Beak". Obviously, some people don't have to tell the vet what their cat's name is and can therefore afford to be funny. At the moment, we're just calling him "Little Dude".

In order to resolve our sad sad situation, we have spared all expense to bring you the "Name Teh Kitteh" survey. Please vote for your favourite name and/or suggest your own. All suggestions will be considered, but we reserve the right to be bound by none of them. There might be a small prize for the winner, if there is one, and if I get around to it.

Of Ikea, Greed, Privilege and Inflation

The former CEO of Merrill Lynch now says he wishes that he's bought furniture at Ikea for his office redecoration rather than the $35,000 toilet and $25,000 table he actually bought as part of the $1,200,000 project.

"Does anyone need a $60,000 car? ... Does anyone really need to be told, over and over, spitting in the wind comes back at you twice as hard?"
- Lou Reed, "Strawman"

Justice, morality and stuff

I don't know if Judge Rakoff is right, but refusing to allow a settlement for $33 million of a claim that payment of $3.6 billion in bonuses was improperly disclosed just feels good, doesn't it?

But maybe this is exactly what Edward Greenspan is complaining about. I'm not sure that the claim that we treat allegedly criminal business people no better than "heroin dealers, mafiosi or child abusers" isn't a bit hyperbolic, though.

What do "the most elementary notions of justice and morality" dictate here? Should the penalty for theft vary with the amount of the theft? The sophistication of the act or the number of advising counsel? The unwillingness of the victimized to protect themselves, e.g. by not buying stock in a bank whose operations they can't collectively control (or maybe comprehend)?

Glunicorn

Never before seen, now captured. Above, the shocking mug shots for this creature, once believed to be mythical.

Great moments in financial disclosure

Meanwhile, in the post-meltdown, post-Enron, post-Madoff world of financial regulation, it's apparently sufficient to disclose a transaction without disclosing what you sold, to whom, at what price, or whether you made a profit or loss on the sale.

See the details and great commentary here.

The outrage outrage

We all love a good scandal, especially a spending scandal that reconfirms our inherent belief that we're getting horrifically ripped off by someone else's free ride. However, I wonder if this whole process hasn't gotten out of hand, and I know that it's warped our sense of priority.
The current Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corporation scandal is a great example. The spending orgy! Five "hefty black binders" to outline all their incredible profligacy! Why, it's pigs at the trough, again!
I don't know about you, but I was really hoping for some Caligula-like excess that would be fun to read about. If what the Globe & Mail published today were the most outrageous examples of what they could glean from those binders, it runs the gamut from ordinary to inoffensive to ill-advised. I'm an Ontario taxpayer and all set to be cheesed off, but I have to say I question the editorial judgment that runs a large-type list of alleged excesses, attached to the employees' names, that includes an Obus Forme back rest and back support (total value about $200) for a guy making about $103,000 a year. Seems reasonable to me. And yes, expensing your $1.12 cloth bag from Sobey's doesn't seem smart, but why do I (or Canada's National Newspaper) care? And yes, "suit for meeting" or "ink cartridge for home printer" seem problematic on the face of it, but there might be some context in which they make sense - the attitude seems to be that just printing the list will elicit that Pavlovian reaction of fury that the editor is gunning for. From the government's point of view, at least, it seemed to work.
Surely we've got bigger things to worry about. The forecast provincial deficit for 2009-2010 is $14.1 billion. That's about 70.5 million back support sets at $200 per. Let alone the question of why we have a government agency to exploit gambling in the first place. I'm enough of a libertarian to think people should generally be able to do what they want with their money - but I have no idea why we need a government organization to run the activity. Yes, it raises revenue, but from whom and with what kind of implication? It makes the government complicit in some pretty ugly personal situations. And the efforts to "address" the social ills they're helping to create are laughable: according to their own statistics, "partnering in the education, research, prevention and treatment of problem gambling" cost $44 million, or less than $1.00 for every $36 awarded in prizes during the year (a total of $1.6 billion, in a province with about 12 million people in it). [Besides, is "partnering" the same as actually doing anything, or more like writing a guilty cheque? How much of that $44 million in fact paid for expenses of the employees of OLG's "partners"? Maybe the Globe needs to get on that.]
Finally, I think all the focus on nickels and dimes misses the best part of this story. Among the board members who have resigned (been forced to resign?) as a consequence of this is the "President and CEO of the Institute of Corporate Directors". The mission of this organization is "to represent the interests of directors — to foster excellence in directors to strengthen the governance and performance of Canadian corporations. We will achieve this mission through education, certification and advocacy of best practices in governance." Presumably the OLG is now a case study? It's also a shame not to note that of the six new directors, three are deputy ministers and two are assistant deputy ministers. So from this we can conclude, I guess, that government-owned corporations are better run by career civil servants than anybody else? Or maybe it's that the whole mess is irredeemably compromised by its confused purpose in the first place.