Friday, May 09, 2008
Finally, an in-depth breakdown of Win Probability Added from the one-game playoff in Major League.
In this case, batting 6-for-100 is pretty damn impressive.
Alex Belth asked 55 "historians, biographers, columnists, beat writers, screenwriters, novelists" for a list of 10 "essential baseball books" and I'm in complete agreement with the most popular pick.
As a Julio Franco fan it saddens me that he couldn't quite make it to his goal of playing in the majors as a 50-year-old, but he did manage to put off retirement until three years after one of my columns at The Hardball Times marveled at how well the "old man" was playing. One of my favorite Franco facts is that he was the featured prospect in a five-player trade package for Von Hayes a month before my birth.
Hopefully my all-time favorite announcer is just as willing to put off retirement.
Former Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com Elisha Cuthbert celebrated checking another name off her list of NHL players to date by wearing a different bikini every day this week.
As a rare straight, male John Mayer fan, I've long wondered about his song-writing process:
Seems like a lot more work than I'd imagined. "Thanks, Kristen Bell!"
Randy Moss was photographed taking snaps under center recently in what serves as a convincing argument against the shotgun formation.
Not only did Buzz Bissinger agree to chat with one of those nasty things that he despises so much, he actually came across as legitimately contrite about his appearance on Costas Now. Of course, you might be too after making a fool of yourself on national television.
Michael Schur/Ken Tremendous/Mose Schrute appeared on a podcast recently to discuss blogs, baseball, Bissinger, The Office, neck beards, and his television cousin. It's an hour very well spent.
Patrick Reusse's most recent column carried a sky-is-falling "Who'll gather news when internet is all that there is?" headline and the Minneapolis Star Tribune's resident blog-hating curmudgeon spent most of the piece talking about how great it was working at newspapers in the good old days, before finishing with what is now a familiar refrain:
The fact that the Star Tribune "lands on a doorstep" means nothing to me and a rapidly growing part of the population, yet old-school writers like Reusse continue to assume that content appearing as ink on a page automatically makes it special. Meanwhile, Reusse's latest pro-newspaper, anti-internet piece never would have found my eyes in the first place if it weren't available on the Star Tribune's website. Good content is good content as ink or pixels, and that's not a winnable fight for guys like Reusse.
Reusse probably won't read it because it's not going to land on his doorstep, but his longtime Star Tribune colleague Steve Aschburner offered an even-handed response to his column on the same day that it was published, showing off the advantage of immediacy that comes with not having to hand deliver content after printing it on a page. Aschburner called Reusse's piece an "unprovoked defense" of newspapers and added that it "read like someone protesting too much" before concluding:
On a related note, the Star Tribune may be in financial trouble while hemorrhaging print readership.
On this week's NBCSports.com "Fantasy Fix" show, Tiffany Simons chats with me about unheralded players who make for nice fantasy pickups, including Kevin Slowey:
Slowey returned from the disabled list yesterday afternoon and cruised through four scoreless innings before serving up a pair of homers in the fifth frame.
Unfortunately, Slowey losing yesterday's game took a backseat to Pat Neshek suffering what may be a serious elbow injury. Hearing words like "snap" and "pop" associated with what he felt suggest that surgery may be in Neshek's future, but hopefully he can avoid going under the knife. Good luck, Pat.
Chris Needham has been blogging about the Nationals since before they were even the Nationals, but decided to hang up the keyboard this week over at Capitol Punishment, saying: "It's time to move on." I've never been especially interested in the Nationals, but still made sure to check out Needham's blog on a regular basis, which is one of the best compliments that a team-specific blogger can receive. Thanks for all the hard work and good writing, Chris.
In light of Needham's retirement, Craig Calcaterra dug up an old Slate article that surveyed the "Best of the Baseball Blogosphere" back in 2004 and looked at what has happened to the sites since then. Of the 21 blogs featured by Slate four years ago, 13 are still alive today. Amazingly, not only were there four Twins blogs among the 21 named in 2004, all four of them are still going strong. Per capita, no fan base has been better represented by bloggers than Twins fans.
Finally, in honor of Franco calling it quits this week's AG.com-approved music video is Neil Young doing a live version of "Old Man":
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Link-O-Rama
Seems like a lot more work than I'd imagined. "Thanks, Kristen Bell!"
And don't kid yourself: A doesn't-cost-a-nickel, stand-alone Internet site is not going to have the quality of resources the Star Tribune has mustered for a rich sports section that lands on a doorstep.Why would a "stand-alone internet site" that "doesn't cost a nickel" be expected to compete with a huge company employing a staff of hundreds? And exactly who suggested that it could, other than the poor strawman that Reusse has decided to pummel? A one-man, no-budget site isn't even in competition with newspapers, but why can't the growing number of well-staffed sites that cost more than a nickel produce "newspaper-style" content and reporting? Because the words don't rub off on your fingers?
The fact that the Star Tribune "lands on a doorstep" means nothing to me and a rapidly growing part of the population, yet old-school writers like Reusse continue to assume that content appearing as ink on a page automatically makes it special. Meanwhile, Reusse's latest pro-newspaper, anti-internet piece never would have found my eyes in the first place if it weren't available on the Star Tribune's website. Good content is good content as ink or pixels, and that's not a winnable fight for guys like Reusse.
Contrary to Reusse's claim, a "doesn't-cost-a-nickel, stand-alone Internet site" can offer a high percentage of the stuff that matters most to sports fans: Analysis, speculation, predictions, opinion. It might not be the first to tell you about a rumored free-agent target or a sordid Lake Minnetonka boat cruise, but it can pile on soon thereafter with the best of them.When landing on a doorstep each morning ceases being a major selling point, then newspapers must compete with everything else in the vast universe of "content," because the Star Tribune's "rich sports section" simply shows up on my computer screen exactly the same way that ESPN.com or MLB.com or MinnPost does. Taking the method of content delivery out of the equation makes it a whole different ball game and people like Reusse don't seem interested in playing.
One more thing: If the worst-case scenario for journalism happened and all newspapers succumbed tomorrow, the thing that the culture and a democratic society would miss most — whether it realized it quickly or not — would be the hard news, the investigative reporting and the watchdog journalism. The lack of proper funding and institutional muscle to cover the competition at right cornerback when the Vikings open training camp in July wouldn't be, by comparison, much of a problem at all.
Slowey returned from the disabled list yesterday afternoon and cruised through four scoreless innings before serving up a pair of homers in the fifth frame.
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Go-Go Cycle (Baseball is a Funny Game)
One night after Joe Mauer's double with two outs left saved them from being no-hit by a guy with a 5.61 career ERA, the same offense that ranked as the league's second-worst erupted for 13 runs on 16 hits (and four walks!) against Mark Buehrle, who had been 20-10 with a 3.69 ERA versus the Twins. As if that weren't enough, Carlos Gomez hit for the Twins' first cycle since Kirby Puckett in 1986, Nick Punto collected five RBIs, and Livan Hernandez took a shutout into the ninth inning.
And people wonder why I love baseball so much.
Gomez was hitting .230/.247/.310 prior to being benched for one game on April 23. In eight games since then he's gone 13-for-30 (.433) with two homers, five total extra-base hits, and four steals. He's now up to .282/.306/.427 in 28 games overall, which along with excellent work on the bases and strong defense in center field is enough to make up for a hideous 29-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio. And to think, just a couple weeks ago some idiot wrote that Gomez "isn't an MLB-caliber hitter."
That same moron has repeatedly suggested that the Twins made a mistake by signing Hernandez, but after last night's complete-game win he's 5-1 with a 3.83 ERA overall and 5-0 with a 2.76 ERA if you look past his brutal start against the Rangers on April 27. Oh, and the Twins are in sole possession of first place at 17-15, although to be fair to the aforementioned doofus he did predict back in March that the team would have a winning record when many others had them pegged for last place.
Unfortunately, that's it from me today and you have my apologies for the relative lack of content here this week. Between Rotoworld player news guru Matthew Pouliot taking a quasi-vacation and the annual Rotoworld Football Draft Guide being due at the publisher, I've been swamped with stuff that sadly has kept me from blogging when the Twins are doing things that deserve to be blogged about. Everything should be back to normal here next week and surely Gomez has a few more cycles in him this season.
And people wonder why I love baseball so much.
Gomez was hitting .230/.247/.310 prior to being benched for one game on April 23. In eight games since then he's gone 13-for-30 (.433) with two homers, five total extra-base hits, and four steals. He's now up to .282/.306/.427 in 28 games overall, which along with excellent work on the bases and strong defense in center field is enough to make up for a hideous 29-to-3 strikeout-to-walk ratio. And to think, just a couple weeks ago some idiot wrote that Gomez "isn't an MLB-caliber hitter."
That same moron has repeatedly suggested that the Twins made a mistake by signing Hernandez, but after last night's complete-game win he's 5-1 with a 3.83 ERA overall and 5-0 with a 2.76 ERA if you look past his brutal start against the Rangers on April 27. Oh, and the Twins are in sole possession of first place at 17-15, although to be fair to the aforementioned doofus he did predict back in March that the team would have a winning record when many others had them pegged for last place.Unfortunately, that's it from me today and you have my apologies for the relative lack of content here this week. Between Rotoworld player news guru Matthew Pouliot taking a quasi-vacation and the annual Rotoworld Football Draft Guide being due at the publisher, I've been swamped with stuff that sadly has kept me from blogging when the Twins are doing things that deserve to be blogged about. Everything should be back to normal here next week and surely Gomez has a few more cycles in him this season.
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Stat of the Day: Outside Swing Percentage
Fan Graphs tracks a new stat called Outside Swing Percentage, which is defined as "the percentage of pitches a batter swings at that are outside the strike zone." So far this year Vladimir Guerrero has the league's highest Outside Swing Percentage at 43.8 and Jason Giambi has the lowest at 9.2, while the MLB average over the past three seasons has been 22.9. Here's how the Twins' hitters stack up when it comes to swinging at pitches outside the strike zone.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, among batting-title qualifiers Joe Mauer (16.9) is the lone Twins hitter with an Outside Swing Percentage under 20.0. Meanwhile, the AL's other 13 teams boast a total of 33 such hitters for an average of 2.5 per team. Talk of "plate discipline" often refers to drawing walks and the Twins have fewer free passes than any team in baseball by a wide margin, but Outside Swing Percentage breaks that down even further and shows an incredibly impatient, undisciplined offense.
Oh, and the Outside Swing Percentage numbers shown above are from before the team's non-Mauer hitters went 0-for-26 with one walk against Gavin Floyd and the White Sox last night. After watching Mauer narrowly save the Twins from being no-hit by Floyd, acting manager Scott Ullger summed up an offense that ranks second-to-last in runs: "I thought the umpire might have had a tight strike zone and we just didn't allow him to walk us."
OS%Just four of the 11 hitters who've come to the plate at least 40 times for the Twins this year have swung at a lower percentage of pitches outside the strike zone than the MLB average. Among all American League hitters with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, only Guerrero (43.8) and A.J. Pierzynski (38.4) have a higher Outside Swing Percentage than Carlos Gomez (38.3) and Delmon Young (36.2).
Carlos Gomez 38.3
Delmon Young 36.2
Michael Cuddyer 30.4
Craig Monroe 29.9
Mike Lamb 27.0
Brendan Harris 25.1
Justin Morneau 24.2
MLB AVERAGE 22.9
Jason Kubel 21.4
Matt Tolbert 20.0
Joe Mauer 16.9
Nick Punto 16.2
At the opposite end of the spectrum, among batting-title qualifiers Joe Mauer (16.9) is the lone Twins hitter with an Outside Swing Percentage under 20.0. Meanwhile, the AL's other 13 teams boast a total of 33 such hitters for an average of 2.5 per team. Talk of "plate discipline" often refers to drawing walks and the Twins have fewer free passes than any team in baseball by a wide margin, but Outside Swing Percentage breaks that down even further and shows an incredibly impatient, undisciplined offense.
Oh, and the Outside Swing Percentage numbers shown above are from before the team's non-Mauer hitters went 0-for-26 with one walk against Gavin Floyd and the White Sox last night. After watching Mauer narrowly save the Twins from being no-hit by Floyd, acting manager Scott Ullger summed up an offense that ranks second-to-last in runs: "I thought the umpire might have had a tight strike zone and we just didn't allow him to walk us."
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
WPA Through April
Win Probability Added (WPA) measures how much impact specific plays had on the outcome of each game and assigns that value to the individual players responsible. For example, hitting a grand slam in the seventh inning when the score is already 10-2 has less WPA value than drawing a walk to lead off the ninth inning of a 2-2 game. The grand slam didn't have much impact on the likely outcome of the game, whereas the walk had a major impact on each team's chances of winning.
There are much better and longer explanations of WPA than that one, of course. If you're interested in learning more about it, Dave Studeman's WPA primer at The Hardball Times is a good place to start, and both Fan Graphs and Baseball-Reference.com offer tons of information on the subject. It's far from a perfect stat and is not meant to definitively prove how valuable each player has been, but WPA is an interesting tool to use in looking back at what has already taken place.
It's important to note than WPA doesn't measure any defensive contributions, which means that strong defenders don't receive full credit for their value. Beyond that, WPA doesn't place offensive contributions in the context of position, so an .850 OPS from a catcher or shortstop is treated the same as an .850 OPS from a designated hitter or left fielder. There's nothing that can be done about measuring defense via WPA, but it's relatively easy to put the numbers in better context by using positional adjustments.
With the help of Fan Graphs creator David Appelman, I've taken the Twins' raw WPA totals for April and adjusted them based on the MLB average at each position. Most adjustments are minimal, but starters are given a boost relative to relievers and hitters who play up-the-middle positions are given a boost relative to hitters who man corner spots. The end result is a sort of adjusted WPA (adjWPA), but before getting to that let's first take a look at the raw totals through April 30:
Cuddyer's low WPA basically comes from two games (April 3 and April 25) in which he combined to go 1-for-10 while leaving 12 runners on base. He had -0.58 WPA between those two games, but 0.11 for the rest of the month. Monroe is the opposite, because on April 22 against the A's he went 3-for-4 with three RBIs, including the game-tying homer, producing enough WPA (0.32) to leave him as a positive contributor for April despite going 9-for-43 (.209) while accumulating -0.22 WPA the rest of the month.
I've heard it said that Carlos Gomez's overall struggles in April were lessened by his "single-handedly" winning games. While hyperbolic, that's actually true to some extent given that Gomez had four games with at least 0.10 WPA. To put that in some context, Morneau totaled six such games in April despite a vastly superior overall WPA. However, along with four huge games Gomez also had six games with WPA worse than -0.10. He was either very good or very bad, and the end result was -0.34 WPA.
However, Reyes totaled "only" 0.65 WPA because he faced 30 percent fewer hitters than Nathan and worked in spots that weren't quite as crucial. Pat Neshek also worked in high-leverage situations and held batters to .209/.255/.395, but had two disastrous appearances, totaling -0.45 WPA on April 7 and -0.54 WPA on April 14. Aside from those two games his WPA for April was a Nathan-like 1.03, but the value of WPA is that what you do in crucial situations has a huge impact.
Relievers were the Twins' strength in April, as the bullpen combined for a 3.54 ERA and 1.06 WPA over 84 innings. The rotation was more of a mixed bag, although as a whole the starters posted 0.45 WPA. Nick Blackburn was fantastic at 0.87, and both Scott Baker (0.41) and Boof Bonser (0.29) checked in solidly above average, but Livan Hernandez was well below average at -0.28 and Francisco Liriano was a mess at -0.67.
After looking at the Twins' raw WPA totals through April 30, let's switch to the adjusted numbers once each player is compared to the MLB average at their respective position. In other words, Morneau is compared to first basemen, Mauer is compared to catchers, Blackburn is compared to starters, and Nathan is compared to relievers. Positional adjustments don't cause any huge shifts yet because of the limited number of games and plate appearances involved, but there are some changes:
There are much better and longer explanations of WPA than that one, of course. If you're interested in learning more about it, Dave Studeman's WPA primer at The Hardball Times is a good place to start, and both Fan Graphs and Baseball-Reference.com offer tons of information on the subject. It's far from a perfect stat and is not meant to definitively prove how valuable each player has been, but WPA is an interesting tool to use in looking back at what has already taken place.
It's important to note than WPA doesn't measure any defensive contributions, which means that strong defenders don't receive full credit for their value. Beyond that, WPA doesn't place offensive contributions in the context of position, so an .850 OPS from a catcher or shortstop is treated the same as an .850 OPS from a designated hitter or left fielder. There's nothing that can be done about measuring defense via WPA, but it's relatively easy to put the numbers in better context by using positional adjustments.
With the help of Fan Graphs creator David Appelman, I've taken the Twins' raw WPA totals for April and adjusted them based on the MLB average at each position. Most adjustments are minimal, but starters are given a boost relative to relievers and hitters who play up-the-middle positions are given a boost relative to hitters who man corner spots. The end result is a sort of adjusted WPA (adjWPA), but before getting to that let's first take a look at the raw totals through April 30:
HITTERS PA AVG OBP SLG WPAAs you can see, the offensive totals for April weren't pretty. Only Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, and Craig Monroe provided a positive WPA--with only Morneau significantly above average--and the team as a whole batted just .260/.305/.362 while racking up -2.00 WPA. Seeing Morneau atop the list isn't news, but it's surprising to see Michael Cuddyer at the bottom given that he missed over half the month with a finger injury and hit a decent enough .297/.350/.405 when he did play.
Justin Morneau 110 .268 .345 .495 0.63
Joe Mauer 99 .295 .357 .386 0.12
Craig Monroe 50 .255 .300 .426 0.10
Brian Buscher 9 .250 .333 .375 -0.01
Matt Tolbert 54 .300 .340 .360 -0.04
Delmon Young 108 .265 .306 .314 -0.10
Denard Span 34 .258 .324 .258 -0.11
Jason Kubel 101 .237 .257 .381 -0.24
Brendan Harris 99 .287 .337 .379 -0.25
Adam Everett 29 .185 .214 .222 -0.26
Mike Lamb 84 .205 .226 .282 -0.28
Carlos Gomez 104 .265 .279 .373 -0.34
Nick Punto 44 .250 .318 .250 -0.36
Mike Redmond 14 .154 .214 .231 -0.41
Michael Cuddyer 40 .297 .350 .405 -0.47
Cuddyer's low WPA basically comes from two games (April 3 and April 25) in which he combined to go 1-for-10 while leaving 12 runners on base. He had -0.58 WPA between those two games, but 0.11 for the rest of the month. Monroe is the opposite, because on April 22 against the A's he went 3-for-4 with three RBIs, including the game-tying homer, producing enough WPA (0.32) to leave him as a positive contributor for April despite going 9-for-43 (.209) while accumulating -0.22 WPA the rest of the month.
I've heard it said that Carlos Gomez's overall struggles in April were lessened by his "single-handedly" winning games. While hyperbolic, that's actually true to some extent given that Gomez had four games with at least 0.10 WPA. To put that in some context, Morneau totaled six such games in April despite a vastly superior overall WPA. However, along with four huge games Gomez also had six games with WPA worse than -0.10. He was either very good or very bad, and the end result was -0.34 WPA.
PITCHERS PA AVG OBP SLG WPATwins hitters combined for -2.00 WPA in April, but the pitching staff nearly balanced that with 1.50 WPA. Taken together that equals -0.50 WPA or a half-win below average, which is what the Twins were by going 13-14 in April. Joe Nathan led the way by converting 9-of-9 save chances with an 0.82 ERA in primarily big-pressure, high-leverage situations. Dennys Reyes was almost flawless, throwing nine scoreless innings while allowing just one of a dozen inherited runners to score.
Joe Nathan 43 .220 .256 .317 1.21
Nick Blackburn 159 .315 .350 .416 0.87
Dennys Reyes 30 .143 .200 .179 0.65
Scott Baker 122 .256 .287 .436 0.41
Boof Bonser 151 .250 .293 .379 0.29
Pat Neshek 48 .209 .255 .395 0.04
Bobby Korecky 11 .250 .455 .250 0.00
Matt Guerrier 65 .288 .354 .441 -0.07
Brian Bass 80 .288 .350 .575 -0.16
Kevin Slowey 14 .286 .286 .643 -0.16
Juan Rincon 41 .243 .317 .432 -0.19
Livan Hernandez 154 .310 .338 .490 -0.28
Jesse Crain 34 .226 .294 .484 -0.43
Francisco Liriano 56 .366 .509 .415 -0.67
However, Reyes totaled "only" 0.65 WPA because he faced 30 percent fewer hitters than Nathan and worked in spots that weren't quite as crucial. Pat Neshek also worked in high-leverage situations and held batters to .209/.255/.395, but had two disastrous appearances, totaling -0.45 WPA on April 7 and -0.54 WPA on April 14. Aside from those two games his WPA for April was a Nathan-like 1.03, but the value of WPA is that what you do in crucial situations has a huge impact.
Relievers were the Twins' strength in April, as the bullpen combined for a 3.54 ERA and 1.06 WPA over 84 innings. The rotation was more of a mixed bag, although as a whole the starters posted 0.45 WPA. Nick Blackburn was fantastic at 0.87, and both Scott Baker (0.41) and Boof Bonser (0.29) checked in solidly above average, but Livan Hernandez was well below average at -0.28 and Francisco Liriano was a mess at -0.67.
After looking at the Twins' raw WPA totals through April 30, let's switch to the adjusted numbers once each player is compared to the MLB average at their respective position. In other words, Morneau is compared to first basemen, Mauer is compared to catchers, Blackburn is compared to starters, and Nathan is compared to relievers. Positional adjustments don't cause any huge shifts yet because of the limited number of games and plate appearances involved, but there are some changes:
adjWPA adjWPAOnce positional adjustments are made only eight Twins ended April with positive WPA, which is a low total even considering the team's 13-14 record. Nathan, Blackburn, and Reyes led the top-heavy WPA distribution, while Morneau and Mauer were the lone hitters to contribute significantly above average for their position. Beginning May with a three-game winning streak has quickly changed the WPA picture, but this was the first of my planned month-by-month looks at WPA throughout the season.
Joe Nathan + 1.17 Matt Tolbert - 0.03
Nick Blackburn + 0.92 Matt Guerrier - 0.13
Dennys Reyes + 0.62 Kevin Slowey - 0.16
Justin Morneau + 0.45 Denard Span - 0.16
Scott Baker + 0.45 Delmon Young - 0.21
Joe Mauer + 0.34 Livan Hernandez - 0.23
Boof Bonser + 0.34 Juan Rincon - 0.23
Craig Monroe + 0.04 Brendan Harris - 0.24
Pat Neshek 0.00 Brian Bass - 0.24
Brian Buscher 0.00 Adam Everett - 0.25
Bobby Korecky 0.00 Carlos Gomez - 0.31
Nick Punto - 0.34
Mike Lamb - 0.35
Jason Kubel - 0.37
Mike Redmond - 0.38
Jesse Crain - 0.46
Michael Cuddyer - 0.53
Francisco Liriano - 0.65
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Friday, May 02, 2008
If you don't have HBO and haven't seen the video online yet, do yourself a big favor and watch Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger make an absolute fool of himself by verbally attacking Deadspin editor Will Leitch during a roundtable "discussion" about blogging on Costas Now. The full-length version of the 20-minute train wreck is definitely worth watching, but here's perhaps the most relevant clip:
My thoughts on the subject could redefine Gleeman-length, but the video pretty much speaks for itself and some of my favorite writers have already weighed in on the topic, so check out Bissinger-related takes from Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star Ledger, Michael David Smith of AOL Fanhouse, Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star, Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead, King Kaufman of Salon, and Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts.
Leitch recovered from the experience to pen a well-done postmortem piece hours after the taping, and Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com and Ken Tremendous of Fire Joe Morgan also wrote interesting takes after being involved in the show. Bissinger surely got high fives backstage and congratulatory phone calls from fellow old-school media types, but to me he just looked like an angry, bitter, out of touch man who unknowingly made a great case for why blogs are thriving and newspapers aren't.
On a related note, my MinnPost colleague David Brauer reports that the Minneapolis Star Tribune's circulation declined seven percent over the past year and has dipped a total of 10 percent over the past 18 months. Given the overall state of the newspaper industry that's certainly not shocking, although the Star Tribune's decline is the sixth-largest in the country among major newspapers. Meanwhile, the St. Paul Pioneer Press essentially holding steady during that same stretch is definitely surprising.
I haven't read either newspaper's print edition regularly in years, but frequent the Star Tribune's website daily. Doing the same with the Pioneer Press' website is tough, because the layout is awful and most articles vanish within days, making linking to content nearly impossible. For a newspaper to make life difficult on people who'd like to read and link to stories online is inexplicable at this stage of the game, and I'd be curious to see a comparison of online readership in addition to print circulation.
Based on personal experience, my guess is the Star Tribune dominates online even more than in print (where Brauer notes they still hold a 2-to-1 edge). Phil Miller is a nice, smart guy who does a good job as Twins beat writer in St. Paul, but LaVelle E. Neal III and Joe Christensen will continue to dominate the links here until the Pioneer Press' website ceases being a mess. Also of note (to me at least) is that Rotoworld's daily readership is now within 10 percent of the Pioneer Press' print circulation.
As someone who spent several hundred summer afternoons mimicking entire lineups while playing home run derby growing up, this guy's eclectic mix of batting-stance impressions and attention to detail were very impressive and oddly fascinating:
My favorite was Willie McGee.
It was a good week for Keeley Hazell's longstanding and increasingly convincing Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com campaign, although as usual anyone at work may want to think twice about clicking those links. She even put out a music video that's pretty damn good if you watch it with the sound muted.
If you missed it earlier this week, check out my in-studio appearance on FOX's "Sports on Demand" show with Jim Rich and Seth Kaplan. And if for some insane reason you're hungry for more of me on video, check out my picks for April fantasy awards on NBCSports.com's "Fantasy Fix" show with Tiffany Simons and Gregg Rosenthal.
Quote of the Week: "She is fully aware of the potential of her body."
Between the multiple mentions in this space and this news, Lori Loughlin is on a role lately.
I've intentionally avoided any hint of politics here over the years, but it's probably worth making an exception when the Dilated Peoples provide the soundtrack to Barack Obama basketball highlights:
His court vision and passing are actually pretty impressive. Seriously.
As a rare straight, male John Mayer fan whose blog traffic has benefited greatly over the years from Jennifer Aniston, they have my blessing.
Can you imagine living in a world where Avery Johnson loses his job after going 194-70 (.735) and Mike D'Antoni possibly moves on after going 267-172 (.608), all while Randy Wittman keeps his gig after going 96-192 (.333)?
One of my rules is that whenever the original Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com poses with a current OFGoAG.com candidate, it gets a link.
The following "Point of View: Guy Stuck in Class" video is sadly a fairly accurate representation of my illustrious college career:
Four years of that definitely prepared me for a life of blogging.
Even local television weathermen can't contain their air-quote making excitement about Jared Allen.
Rotoworld rookie Drew Silva is showing an awful lot of range with his new blog, One Droo Hill. A look at the front page reveals entries about Peyton Manning, Kim Kardashian, and Kosuke Fukudome, plus Silva live blogging an episode of The Hills.
Two more new(ish) blogs to check out: Down With Goldy and SoCalTwinsFan Musings.
Like me, Will Young's wife Laurie is fed up with the Twins' longtime lack of plate discipline. Unlike me, she's actually doing something about it that will help a worthwhile cause, raising money for the Susan G. Koman Three-Day Walk to benefit breast cancer awareness. I'll let her explain:
In honor of Mrs. Young's "Walks for a Walker" fund-raising effort this week's AG.com-approved music video is James Taylor doing a live version of "Walking Man":
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Link-O-Rama
My thoughts on the subject could redefine Gleeman-length, but the video pretty much speaks for itself and some of my favorite writers have already weighed in on the topic, so check out Bissinger-related takes from Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star Ledger, Michael David Smith of AOL Fanhouse, Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star, Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead, King Kaufman of Salon, and Jon Weisman of Dodger Thoughts.
Leitch recovered from the experience to pen a well-done postmortem piece hours after the taping, and Jason Whitlock of FOXSports.com and Ken Tremendous of Fire Joe Morgan also wrote interesting takes after being involved in the show. Bissinger surely got high fives backstage and congratulatory phone calls from fellow old-school media types, but to me he just looked like an angry, bitter, out of touch man who unknowingly made a great case for why blogs are thriving and newspapers aren't.
I haven't read either newspaper's print edition regularly in years, but frequent the Star Tribune's website daily. Doing the same with the Pioneer Press' website is tough, because the layout is awful and most articles vanish within days, making linking to content nearly impossible. For a newspaper to make life difficult on people who'd like to read and link to stories online is inexplicable at this stage of the game, and I'd be curious to see a comparison of online readership in addition to print circulation.
Based on personal experience, my guess is the Star Tribune dominates online even more than in print (where Brauer notes they still hold a 2-to-1 edge). Phil Miller is a nice, smart guy who does a good job as Twins beat writer in St. Paul, but LaVelle E. Neal III and Joe Christensen will continue to dominate the links here until the Pioneer Press' website ceases being a mess. Also of note (to me at least) is that Rotoworld's daily readership is now within 10 percent of the Pioneer Press' print circulation.
My favorite was Willie McGee.
His court vision and passing are actually pretty impressive. Seriously.
Four years of that definitely prepared me for a life of blogging.
I'll walk 60 miles over the course of three days with other people in an effort to raise awareness and to find a cure for breast cancer. I've created a mini-program named "Walks for a Walker" to raise money for the walk. In this program, people are donating a certain amount of money for each Twins walk from the beginning of the season until August 1 (since the walk is in September).For more information, please check out her blog, where you can pledge a donation and then have even more reason to hope that Carlos Gomez can learn some semblance of the strike zone.
So far the people are donating anywhere from 25 cents per walk to $1 per walk. I'm making this pretty painless for the people who want to donate in that I'm sending out monthly e-mails to each person who decides to be part of this program, letting them know how much they owe. Each donor has the option of donating money per month, at any point they want, or at the end of the "program."
Once you're done here, check out my latest "Daily Dose" column over at Rotoworld.
Fat-O-Meter
First Time: 92.5 pounds
This Time: 10.0 pounds
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