05.29.07
Posted in Baseball at 3:34 pm by Valentine
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference Summable Game Logs, with occasional tidbits from ESPN.com player cards. VORP is a measure of cumulative offense relative to positional expectations, and can be found at Baseball Prospectus.
The Red Sox have been remarkably consistent this year! Breaking their season up, they have 6, 7, 7, 8, and 7 wins in each ten-game chunk. Despite losing their ace to a two-week sojourn on the DL, they once again sit at an even .700 record. Even more remarkable than their overall record, the Red Sox have lost consecutive games only twice this season. They have dropped a series only three times! Oakland, at 1-1, is the only team to play .500+ baseball against the Red Sox. Some luck is involved, perhaps, but this is the best Red Sox team I have ever had the pleasure of seeing. They have one of the best rotations in the majors, a bullpen that consistently slams the door, and an offense that is among the best at putting runs on the board. Read the rest of this entry »
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05.27.07
Posted in Baseball at 8:32 pm by Valentine
Data thanks to Baseball-Reference.com and ESPN.com.
This time around the rotation resulted in two average starts and two bombs. Can you tell by the results that the recent opponents feature strong offenses? The Ballpark is a tough place to visit, and you have to be happy with the sweep no matter how ugly some of the innings were to watch.
The next six are at home against the Indians and Yankees. Will the Red Sox take advantage of the off-day to advance Beckett in the rotation to face the Yankees? Or will they trust in Schilling for the third game (likely facing Pettitte)?
Read the rest of this entry »
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05.21.07
Posted in Baseball at 12:52 pm by Valentine
Roger Clemens is back! Almost. The Rocket makes his second minor league start on Wednesday in AA Trenton, facing Red Sox top prospect Clay Buchholz. (Buchholz may be half his age, but it should be a good battle.) Barring setback, Clemens will then be promoted to the majors. He will likely face the Blue Jays on May 28th or 29th, setting up Mussina, Pettitte, and Clemens (in some order) against the Red Sox in Fenway.
So how strong are the Yankee Rockets, Mark II? Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in News at 9:59 am by Valentine
More concerns about the safety of Chinese exports. At the very least, we need strict “country of origin” labeling laws for any products originating in China or containing ingredients that originated in China. The FDA cannot reliably intercept tainted shipments.
Previous article and links:
http://www.strangelandblog.com/2007/05/10/chinese-food-safety/
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Posted in Baseball at 8:46 am by Valentine
With the first of six rounds in the books, the American League leads the National League by a 24-18 margin (a .571 winning percentage). While this is not quite the .611 mark they achieved last year, it would still be the second widest disparity in the history of interleague play.
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05.19.07
Posted in Baseball at 7:42 pm by Valentine
Thanks to guest author Bill N. for contributing this article.
The Hendricks brothers have a history of inserting unusual clauses in
Roger Clemens’ contracts, and this time they’ve come up with one that
might prove a corker. Word from the Clemens camp is that if the Yankees
fall further than 15 games behind the Red Sox before The Rocket is
scheduled to pitch his first game, he can switch teams.
“It’s no secret that I want to be with a winner,” Clemens said as he
stepped out of the Yankees’ workout facility in Tampa. “If George and
Joe are now going to be big-time losers, why would I want to play for
them?” Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Baseball at 11:26 am by Valentine
The Red Sox currently lead the AL East by ten games! The last time Boston held a division lead this large was the 1995 season. That team first led by ten games on August 14, eventually expanding the lead to sixteen games on August 28th before coasting to the division title.
That was an odd season, shortened a month by the strike-lockout. The 1995 team was good (finishing with a 86-58 record), but I believe the current version is better. Enjoy!
http://www.baseballrace.com/races/MLB-1995-AL_East-Normal.asp
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05.18.07
Posted in News at 1:07 pm by Valentine
“A bipartisan group of senators and President Bush agreed yesterday to a potentially historic deal on an immigration bill that would give 12 million undocumented residents the chance to become legal Americans while beefing up border security and cracking down on employers who hire illegal workers.”
Read the Boston Globe article here, with further analysis here.
Everybody agrees that the current system is broken. Roughly 4% of the people in this country are here illegally. The USCIS is drowning under a multi-year backlog of applications for citizenship. Legal immigrants with valuable technical training are stymied by a shortage of visas, while unskilled hordes swarm freely across our borders.
I do not understand the issue thoroughly enough to judge the proposed solution, but it sounds like this proposal tackles the problem on multiple fronts. The ultimate solution should welcome those who can contribute positively to the country while restricting the flow of those who have less to offer. (A selfish view, perhaps, but I am not ready to embrace unrestricted immigration.)
Most importantly, all those who live and work in the United States must be documented and taxed. We need to provide legal avenues to meet legitimate business needs, then crack down on those who continue to bypass the law.
Your thoughts?
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05.17.07
Posted in Finance at 3:15 pm by Valentine
Is globalization good or bad for the country? For the individuals in it? This essay is well-written and in my opinion balanced, though some will see it as a liberal viewpoint. I think few will deny that the upper economic classes have reaped greater benefit than the lower classes. What should we do about it? Read the essay for one opinion…
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2007/05/you_economists_.html
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Posted in Baseball at 12:29 pm by Valentine
Founded in 1900-1901, 25 years after the National League began play, the American League is sometimes called the “Junior Circuit”. Yet this name is half in jest; the two leagues share equally the label of “major league baseball”, draw from the same talent pool, and have similar resources available. Little distinction remains between the leagues since the separate offices were eliminated a few years back.
History provides scant evidence for either league to assert its primacy. The National League holds a 41-34-2 advantage in the All-Star Game — an argument that their top talent, at least, has historically been slightly superior. Against this we see that the American League has more World Series victories by a 60-41 margin. But even this seemingly lopsided comparison tells us little about the leagues as a whole, since the comparison reverses if you remove the 26 Yankees crowns from consideration.
Results from recent years have hinted that the American League might be emerging as the stronger. Read the rest of this entry »
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