Texans will travel to Indianapolis to battle the Colts
The Houston Texans will face the Indianapolis Colts this week in Indianapolis. The game will be a great test for both teams that are both already assured a spot in the AFC playoff picture. Many will be watching as the teams have had some great divisional battles in recent years. The Colts have been a much better home team as well, and would love to prove that they belong in the playoffs as much as the next team. Both teams have obviously enjoyed much success this season, but have done it in different ways.
The Colts have battled despite news that their coach Chuck Pagano was in a more crucial battle with Leukemia. This week, he comes back to the Colts sidelines at Lucas Oil Stadium, however, and the team would like nothing more then to win it for him. They have won with their offense all year, which has won some tight games and have provided many late winning drives. Rookie quarterback Andrew Luck is certainly the real deal and looks to be a staple in the NFL playoffs for years to come.
Houston has gotten more wins thanks to their string defense that is anchored by Pro-Bowler J.J Watt. Watt is still looking to break an NFL record in this game as he hones in on the Sack record Michael Strahan got years ago. The team certainly still has plenty of big names on offense as well, and will be sending an underrated quarterback Matt Schaub to the Pro Bowl as well. Needless to say, this is a must see potential playoff match-up that will surely have a playoff atmosphere.
Why did Tebow never get a chance?
The New York Jets sure got their money’s worth out of Tim Tebow this season. NOT…the team has instead made another crucially terrible decision that will cost the team more then just money. It will also cost the team and players to question the leadership of this team, which starts at the quarterback position. It is clear that Mark Sanchez is all but done in New York. This probably was sealed when the team acquired Sanchez, which seamed to crush the quarterbacks attitude along with any confidence he did have. The leadership question then transfers to above and the coach Rex Ryan.
Last week, Tebow decided to talk to the man himself after he was not given the chance to start when Ryan decided to sit Sanchez. Instead, Coach Ryan started McIlroy who did nothing to give the team a spark as they lost 27-17 at home against the Chargers. Tebow reportedly was upset about this and talked to Ryan about it. Personally, I too do not understand why he would not get the start.
Given how much they paid to get Tebow, and his record last season as a starter, he should have gotten the chance. They always say that as a quarterback it is all about wins and losses. If that is true, then Tebow has proven he should get to be out there. He does not do it pretty or blow you away with his numbers, but in the end he can get the wins. Let's also be honest…Sanchez never blew the roof off the place either. In the end, it is the Jets who will have to ask and answer all these questions.
Who will be the worst of the worst in New York?
The Bills fell 24-10 last week against the Miami Dolphins in Miami. The Dolphins did not allow a Buffalo touchdown until late in the fourth quarter. They also scored a touchdown themselves in every quarter but the fourth. The Dolphins were eliminated from the playoffs, despite the win, as they needed a lot of help from other teams losing to get in.
The Dolphins looked flat on offense as they have the majority of the year. It seems when their offense struggles their defense does as well, but when the offense does well the defense does even worse. This has caused many L’s for the team and they will need more defensive acquisitions to fix this.
The Jets got embarrassed even worse as they fell 27-17 at home against a struggling Charger team. Both teams are now 6-9, but the Jets had a chance to at least win and say they were better than San Diego. Mark Sanchez was benched for McIlroy who did nothing to show he was the answer for the team’s future. Tebow was upset about this and let Rex Ryan know it. Frankly I can not blame him as it does not really make sense for the Jets to have even paid the money to get Tebow. Regardless, Sunday’s game will at least show who is the worst of the worse in NY.
Steelers hope for final win against Cleveland this week
The Pittsburgh Steelers season is officially not over, as they have one more game this year against the Steelers in Pittsburgh this Sunday. The Steelers are, however, not going to make the playoffs this season. The team is usually an NFL staple for the playoffs, and this year marks the first year since 1999 that a Pennsylvania team has not been in the playoff hunt. The Steelers will face the Browns on Sunday and will look to at least even their record up at 8-8 to end the season.
The Steelers playoff dreams officially ended last week in a loss to the Cincinnati Bengals at home. The game ended 13-10 in a bitter defensive struggle. The Steelers have had the number one defense in the league, but their offense has struggled under 1st year offensive coordinator Todd Haley. Ben Roethlisberger has been outspoken about Haley this season before the year began and during and it appears that he never fully embraced the system.
If the Steelers hope to avoid a losing season they must get past the Cleveland Browns who have lost two straight games. Last week they lost to the Broncos on the road and the week before they were knocked off by the Redskins in Cleveland. The Browns did beat the Steelers when they met in Cleveland earlier in the year though. In that game, the Browns forced 8 turnovers against Steeler backup Byron Leftwich. The Browns will be certainly motivated as they look to sweep the Steelers in this year’s series, which is something they have not done since coming back into the league in 1999.
2012 Spectometer "Production" Leaderboards
Recapping again, we came up with two "summary stats" that take into account all of a hitter's "plate outcomes" in an effort to find indicators of the two key elements that we evaluate: Production (sort-of indicator of SLG) and Plate Skills (indicator of OBP). Obviously, OBP + SLG results in OPS, which is a very good (and increasingly universal) summary indicator of MLB value. And now I've added a "composite" of the two stats, intended as an indicator of OPS (that will be the next article).
It will be three important final leaderboards to finish off the year, then. The first one, measuring Plate Skills, is here.
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Once again, a recap of the ground rules:
- Ages 26 and over are considered "post-prospect" (for hitters), and are not counted (sorry Luis Rodriguez for plate skills and Joseph Dunigan for slugging).
- A season needs at least 100 plate appearances to count. Seasons between 50 and 99 PAs I will look at, and might note, but they won't go on the leaderboard.
- Seasons that are entirely in foreign leagues don't count. Mixed seasons with some foreign and some domestic stats I will count (but note with a caveat). Good news for Gaby Guerrero fans (of which I am one).
- The normal age-arc I use is Rookie/Short Season: 19 ... Low-A: 20 ... High-A: 21 ... AA: 22 ... AAA: 23. A guy who is younger than age-arc is noted in green. One year older than normal age-arc is not noted, but two years or more older earns an "age caveat" and is noted in blue.
- Ages are from baseball-reference.com "age season" (age as of midnight on June 30 of the season).
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Stat: "Plausibility Index" (as re-scaled ... discussion of which here)
Formula: Proprietary (but discussed here)
Interpretive rule of thumb: The stat measures a hitter's ability to "produce" at the plate by determining the "necessary conversion rate" of "random-y balls-in-play" to "random-y singles" in order to reach an OPS of .890. As the stat is now re-scaled, a very low "necessary conversion rate" will now produce a very high index score. A score of 100 is now set to be a "necessary conversion rate" of .330, which is roughly the minimum figure for a reasonably good season for a hitter with a chance of making the major leagues. If the "necessary conversion rate" is lower (indicating a better offensive year), the index will be above 100.
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All hitters:
- Mike Zunino (21): 166
- Leon Landry (22): 127
- Stefen Romero (23): 127
- Gabriel Guerrero (18): 126 (includes foreign stats)
- Jack Marder (22): 120
- Rich Poythress (24): 118
- Jabari Henry (21): 116
- Taylor Ard (22): 116
- Daniel Paolini (22): 115
- Nate Tenbrink (25): 115
- Brad Miller (22): 110
- Timothy Lopes (18): 109
- Carlos Peguero (25): 108
- Mike McGee (23): 107
- Steven Proscia (22): 106
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Below age-arc hitters (Prodigies):
- Gabriel Guerrero (18): 126 (includes foreign stats)
- Timothy Lopes (18): 109
- Julio Morban (20): 106
- Nick Franklin (21): 99
- Joe DeCarlo (18): 96
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Glove-position hitters:
- Mike Zunino -- C (21): 166
- Leon Landry -- CF (22): 127
- Stefen Romero -- 2b (23): 127
- Jack Marder -- 2b/C (22): 120
- Jabari Henry -- CF (21): 116
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Top 15 with "age-caveat" (almost-too-old) hitters excluded:
- Mike Zunino (21): 166
- Leon Landry (22): 127
- Stefen Romero (23): 127
- Gabriel Guerrero (18): 126 (includes foreign stats)
- Jack Marder (22): 120
- Brad Miller (22): 110
- Timothy Lopes (18): 109
- Mike McGee (23): 107
- Steven Proscia (22): 106
- Julio Morban (20): 106
- John Hicks (22): 99
- Nick Franklin (21): 99
- Johermyn Chavez (23): 99
- Ji-Man Choi (21): 97
- Mario Martinez (22): 97
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Notes:
- Right up at the top: a catcher (by a mile), a center fielder, a possible 2b and a guy who is both a 2b and a catcher. Gotta love that.
- Except in the case of Zunino, there is the High Desert factor to take into account.
- In the prior article ("What the Three Numbers Mean"), I noted John Olerud's profile was 118-111-129. That wasn't by accident. Brad Miller's is 118-110-128. Tons of doubles and walks with some longballs mixed in ... at shortstop.
- Zero-home-run Timmy Lopes ahead of 21-home-run Carlos Peguero? The formula is designed to figure who can succeed at the plate in the majors, and it takes strikeouts and walks into account. Timmy had 13 triples, and a freaky-low K%, just enough to lift him ahead of whiff-tastic C-Peg.
What the Three Numbers Mean
After putting all the stats together for this series, I realized that (though they made sense for me to calculate) they weren't necessarily "user-friendly." The toughest thing was that -- for the stats based on the "necessary conversion rate" of "random-y" balls-in-play to "random-y" singles -- "low" was good for hitters and "high" was good for pitchers, which is completely counterintuitive to what we are used to.
That, plus the "Plate Skills" metric (indicator of OBP) was on a completely different scale from the "Production" metric (indicator of SLG).
So, what I have done is converted both those key stats to a scale that is intended to be similar to OPS+, which which most folks are familiar.
The key difference, however, is that for OPS+ the score of "100" is league average. For prospects, the "100" score is what I have found to be roughly the minimum score for guys with a shot at the majors.
Therefore, for Plate Skills ("Hitter's +/-"), instead of "0" = "100" (which would indicate minor-league average), I set "+1.5" = "100" since that is "roughly genuine prospect minimum."
For Production ("Plausibility Index"), the average was more in the .360 range (higher some years), but I set "100" at .330, which is, again, about as high as one can get and be a reasonable year for an MLB prospect.
The third number is not initially as intuitive, but it is the composite of the two other numbers. It is determined the same way that OPS+ can be determined from OBP+ and SLG+.
For example, Ichiro's career OBP+ (his OBP/leage avg. OBP) is 112 (.365/.325). His career SLG+ is 101 (.419/.414). Those two numbers contribute to his career OPS+ of 113. It is "+12" plus "+1" that gets you the "+13." The "100s" don't really matter ... it is the "plus" or the "minus" that matters.
Another example: Brendon Ryan ... OBP+ of 95 (.306/.323) and SLG+ of 80 (.327/.407). So that's "-5" and "-20" for a total of "-25", which produces an OPS+ of 75.
So you can always get the third number from the first two, but not by adding or averaging, but by combining the differences from 100 and then taking that combination as a difference from 100.
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That gives us a series of three numbers: For MLB players ... OBP+, SLG+, OPS+. For prospects ... Plate Skills, Production, Composite.
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How to interpret, using examples from MLB vets:
Excellent at everything: Prince Fielder ... 117-127-144
Not quite as excellent at everything: David Wright ... 114-120-134
Plate skills, less power: John Olerud ... 118-111-129
Fewer plate skills, more power: Giancarlo Stanton ... 106-134-140
Fewer plate skills, not as much power: Mark Reynolds ... 98-111-109
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Here are the career scores from the 2012 Mariners veterans:
Miguel Olivo ... 83-100-83 (terrible plate skills, decent power, but not enough to make up for it)
Brendan Ryan ... 95-80-75 (tolerable plate skills, no power, better have a good glove)
Ichiro ... 112-101-113 (his career SLG is a point higher than Olivo's)
Chone Figgins ... 105-87-92 (career totals reflect a classic middle-infielder/leadoff profile, but it didn't happen in Seattle)
Franklin Gutierrez ... 95-94-89 (not bad for a gold-glove CF, really ... if he can stay on the field)
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OK, I hope that gives you a sense of how the series of numbers works. If one of the numbers is below 100, then the other number ought to make up for it ... or you'd better have a really good glove.
And for prospects, the 100 is set at the minimal for a guy with a real shot, so 102-100-102 (Kevin Rivers, at age 23 in Low-A) only indicates that he's on the fringe, even if he weren't old for his level (and I'm a Rivers fan).
Snowflakes for Sandy Hook
In the wake of Sandy Hook’s school shooting tragedy, most of us are left stunned with aching hearts, feeling powerless in the face of such violence. We argue over gun control and get political when really, perhaps the best thing we can do is love our children even more fiercely, more tenderly.
This includes the children of Sandy Hook. Even though most of us may not know the members of the Connecticut community personally, we can all still take part in this simple idea. People all over the country are cutting out snowflakes and sending them to the children at Sandy Hook to let them know we are thinking of them. As the kids prepare to return to a new school in January, brothers and sisters of America are hoping to fill their building with snowflakes and provide a drop of whimsy in this sea of despair.
Making snowflakes is so easy. If you don’t know how, you can always fold up a coffee filter and make an easy snowflake—or follow this simple online tutorial. No matter what you decide to do, it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be from your heart. Add glitter, yarn, confetti—whatever you want. You can even jot a message on it if you want, though plain snowflakes are fine, too. Have each member of your family design a snowflake to send; it only costs one stamp to mail it to the kids.
Once you’re ready, please send your snowflakes to:
Snowflakes for Sandy Hook
Connecticut PTSA
60 Connolly Parkway, Building 12
Suite 103
Hamden, CT 06514
Reading Pile: 12/27/12
The Clockwork Girl HC- It took me forever to finally get around to reading this and I feel kinda bad that I didn’t get to it sooner because this is a pretty great recommendation for a young reader. It’s a cute little story of a robotgirl and a monsterboy falling in love despite the wishes of their fathers. It’s a pretty basic plot with no real twists, but it’s handled nicely with some eye-catching artwork. It reminds me a bit of the 2008 animated film Igor, which also had a nice play on mad scientists. It’s a decent price point of $19.99 for a hardcover package, plus it has a nice cover by Brandon Graham. B
Avengers #2- If you have any reservations about this series, please look at the following panels:
Ok, seriously, Hickman’s got us covered. This is going to be a fun ride. He understands the characters, and he can think big. Sit back and just soak it all in and then be prepared to be baffled two years down the line when all these tiny details start to make more sense. A-
Spectrum 19- I usually pick up the hardcovers, but they can be a bit pricey so there is a nice soft cover version if you are interested. The thing I like about the Spectrum art books is the opportunity to be exposed to artists I might otherwise not be exposed to through comics or animation. Their attention towards advertising, concept art, dimensional, editorial, and more gives you a nice broad scope of what’s been out for the past year. I also like to pick these books up so I can bitch about which artists were not published in the comic section. Once again we don’t see a single piece of work by JH Williams III, and that’s sorta friggin’ crazy. Because lord knows I likes me some Frank Cho or Arthur Adams, but you really didn’t have to give them like two or three entrees each if it meant putting one goddamned page of Batwoman in the damn book. But I digress. I still love these publications and look forward to the next volume. A-
Avengers Arena #2- I'm surprised by how much I really liked this issue. Seriously Marvel, wtf? What’s with all the good content? Characters are developed, tone and atmosphere are explored, art is great, and I’m interested to see more. Huh. B+
Style Profile: Miranda Kerr
Not only is Australian model Miranda Kerr currently one of the most successful figures in the modeling industry and married to the equally attractive Orlando Bloom, but she's also a business entrepreneur, launching Kora Organics in 2009, her own line of organic skincare products. Best known as a Victoria's Secret Angel, Kerr has been appearing in their magazines, television commercials and the eminent annual fashion show since 2007. Kerr practices Nichiren Buddhism, donates to various charitable causes globally and is the author of Treasure Yourself, an inspirational self-help book intended for female teenagers. Subsequently, her fashion style is pretty phenomenal. Take a peek and a few notes of Miranda Kerr, on the red carpet, city streets and runways.
Kerr is the new face of Mango and went all white for a press conference and photo call in Madrid, Spain.
Kerr pairs leather Maison Martin Margiela shorts with tights and Isabel Marant high heel ankle boots.
An oversized jacket and thin sweater help keep her warm.
Kerr chose a red lace Lover dress and strappy Christian Louboutin heels for a David Jones fashion launch in Australia.
Kerr cruises around Paris during Fashion Week, looking très chic in leather shorts, a clean white T-shirt
and cat shades with red heels and lips.
Kerr models a high-low, prom-inspired gown during the Liverpool Fashion Fest in Mexico City.
Kerr wore a Victoria Beckham dress paired with nude Lanvin heels and a baby blue Prada bag
when visiting the Vogue office in New York City.
No Miranda Kerr photo gallery would be complete without an image of her best known appearance: the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Here she wears a black and white lace bra and panty set with massive feather wings and black gloves as she struts down the runway.