Pop Culture Happenings: All Cee Lo Green Needs Is Love

Submitted by brodiemanthe1st on 11/27/12 10:00am

CeeLo Green "All I Need Is Love (ft. The Muppets)" (Official Music Video)

Considering we are officially in Christmas season, it makes sense that Cee Lo Green would make a Christmas album with the Muppets, titled "Cee Lo's Magic Moment." Since that's what hip-hop artists do nowadays, I guess. Either way, Kermit & Co. sure jazz up the video for "All I Need Is Love," as does the special Santa and the Cee Lo Muppet. enjoy!

Pitching Sneak Peek: Part 1 Overview

Submitted by Spectator on 11/27/12 9:14am

felix.jpg

Why evaluating pitchers is harder

Tacoma Rain wants a preview of how the Spectometer evaluates pitchers.

Well, it turns out it's a lot harder (or at least more complicated):

Not as much data

A lot of what I do relates to extra-base hits (as such, and as a proxy for "hitting the ball with authority" since we have no minor league numbers for speed off the bat). Well, for whatever reason, baseball-reference.com and fangraphs.com don't carry minor league stats for XBH-against for pitchers. You can only have so much, I suppose. Regardless, MinorLeagueCentral.com does have it, but only for 2011 and 2012. So, I can't go back in time and double-check myself the way I did for hitters.

More routes to success

My "thing" for hitters was that they had to "play offense" and "play defense" at the same time (the pitcher holds the ball and initiates the action; offensive players have no quarterback or point guard).

So, the minor leaguers with the best chance of success are those who have "all-around" ability; namely, "Production + Plate Skills." Those guys sorely lacking in one or the other (Carlos Peguero on one extreme; Luis Rodriguez on the other) tend not to make it.

That's not the case with pitchers. You can make it as a "command/control" guy who "wins plate appearances" and you can also make it as a "stuff" guy who is "unhittable" despite not commanding the zone. Combination of the two is good, but not as necessary as it is for hitters. In fact, instead of primarily looking for cumulative stats, I look for suppression of production despite a bad score on the command/control category. The top two starters at "suppression of production" despite failing to "win plate appearances"? Hultzen and Paxton. They have "stuff."

Age-arc matters less, if at all

With hitters, the guys who don't "have it" by age 23, and who don't show ability against their age-peer pitching, just don't make it. There seems to be a foundational minimum of ability for hitters that can't really be "discovered" later on. I'm not totally ruling it out, but I haven't seen it yet, really.

Again, with pitchers, it's not as clear. Pitchers can "discover" new pitches and new techniques much more easily. Case in point: I was still kind of locked into age-arc thinking on Bobby LaFromboise this year. After all, he was 26 and still pitching in AA. That's four years past the standard age-arc. But he came on strong, pulverized AA, was solid in AAA and earned a spot on the 40-man roster. Lesson learned.

At the same time, you still need to be wary of guys who look good pitching against hitters with a lot less experience, so I still assign age caveats in the lower minors, just not so much in the upper minors.

Pitching Sneak Peek: Part 2 Concepts

Submitted by Spectator on 11/27/12 9:13am

vargas.jpg

A different mantra

If you've been following along, you know our mantra for hitters is:

PRODUCTION + PLATE SKILLS + AGE-ARC

And, we learned in the prior article that the reverse isn't quite true for pitchers.

First, the "plus" part is more of an "or," and, second, the "age-arc" part isn't as crucial.

So, with pitchers, it's:

"STUFF" or "COMMAND/CONTROL" or BOTH + (kinda-sorta) AGE-ARC

***

Our measure of "stuff" is Reverse Plausibility Index. For the explanation of "Plausibility Index" for hitters, including the Allegory of the Window, go here. For pitchers, we are calculating the plausibility of their ability to suppress hitting production to an OPS of .700.

If the pitcher can reduce the number of extra-base hits and walks allowed, then hitters will need to rely on "random-y" balls-in-play for production. Strikeouts reduce the number of balls-in-play that hitters have the chance to "convert" to "random-y" singles.

So, a pitcher with "stuff" will get strikeouts and induce weak contact. That's the idea anyway. A high "Reverse Plausibility Index" means that hitters would need to convert an inordinate number of "random-y" balls-in-play to singles in order to be productive against said pitcher.

***

Our measure of "Command/Control" is simply the same calculation used to measure "Plate Skills" (which we dubbed "Hitter's +/-" and explained here), except that, obviously, the goal is to deny hitters their ability to "win plate appearances." So, for pitchers, we are looking for a high negative score (Hitter's -).

We are trying to measure the pitcher's ability to throw strikes and "pitcher's pitches" and avoid balls and "hitter's pitches."

One cool note: last winter when I ran "Hitter's +/-" on all MLB pitchers, the leader by far was a guy I had never even heard of named Sergio Romo of the Giants. One year later he's a World Series hero and soon will be a multi-millionaire.

The other name that came up, via my work on the Mariners organization, is a guy that we'll be talking about more in this space: Jordan Pries.

Pitching Sneak Peek: Part 3 Numbers

Submitted by Spectator on 11/27/12 9:11am

wilhelmsen.jpg

Top 10 lists for each category

From the two prior articles, you have an idea of what we're attempting to measure here, and if you want a recap of the entire Spectometer project, you can read "Too Much is Not Enough" or "I Feel Numb" ...

Also note: MinorLeagueCentral.com includes MLB stats for guys who pitched in both the minors and majors. Such pitchers are indicated by an asterisk.

Top 10 Mariners Minor League Starters for "Command/Control" (measured by "Hitter's +/-"):

Jordan Pries -5.50
Stephen Landazuri -4.16
Rusty Shellhorn -3.47
Trevor Miller -3.45
Tyler Pike -3.16
Anthony Fernandez -2.56
Erasmo Ramirez* -2.48
Dylan "Sharkie" Unsworth -2.07
Charles Kaalekahi -1.92
Brandon Maurer -1.78

Top 11 Mariners Minor League Relievers for "Command/Control" (measured by "Hitter's +/-"):

I include 11 because Matt Brazis technically didn't qualify since he only faced 96 batters, and I usually don't count a season unless a guy has 100 PAs or 100 BFs. But he was so totally awesome, I counted him anyway.

Matt Brazis -14.01
Carter Capps* -9.96
Brian Moran -5.59
Kyle Hunter -5.03
Charlie Furbush* -4.84
Shawn Kelley* -4.55
Bobby LaFromboise -4.49
Robert Shore -4.23 [started and relieved]
David Holman -3.81
Austin Hudson -3.78 [yes, he had a 6.32 ERA, but it was all singles]
Carson Smith -2.78

Top 10 Mariners Minor League Starters for "Stuff" (measured by "Reverse Plausibility Index"):

Tyler Pike .385 (hitters would need to convert "random-y" balls-in-play to singles at a .385 rate to achieve a .700 OPS against)
Danny Hultzen .352
Jordan Pries .349
James Paxton .344
Stephen Landazuri .329
Brandon Maurer .318
Erasmo Ramirez* .301
Rusty Shellhorn .300
Victor Sanchez .293
Steve Ewing .293

Top 11 Mariners Minor League Relievers for "Stuff" (measured by "Reverse Plausibility Index"):

Carter Capps* .440
Dominic Leone .430
Bobby LaFromboise .390
Grady Wood .386
Carson Smith .370
Charlie Furbush* .368
Stephen Shackleford .359
David Colvin .357
Robert Shore .356 [started and relieved]
Stephen Pryor .352
Brian Moran .345

Obviously, the guys who have "stuff" and "command/control" will jump out: Carter Capps, Carson Smith (remember he was pitching in High Desert and had a terrible April), Tyler Pike and our man Jordan Pries.

But, the "sleepers" (or, at least, guys with big upside) are the guys who can suppress production with their "stuff" even when losing plate appearances to the hitters: Danny Hultzen (2012 sloppy version); James Paxton (including the wobbly knee period); and the guy whom we didn't focus on much until we ran the numbers: Dominic Leone, the 5-foot-11 righty out of Clemson.

Oh No They Didn't: Lucky Man Gets Luckier

Submitted by brodiemanthe1st on 11/27/12 9:00am

Guy wins money live on TV

In this Australian news clip, possibly recent and possibly from the 1980s based on its video quality, watch the unthinkable. While filming a segment about how this man's life turned around after winning the lottery, they asked him to reenact the event, and in doing so, he won another $250,000. Crazy stuff, kiddies (Sorry about the audio quality in the beginning of the clip).

Pulling At My Heartstrings: Too Many Toys!

Submitted by brodiemanthe1st on 11/27/12 7:49am

Tali playing with all her new toys

Tali just got back from the vet, and to be honest all she wants to do is play. So her owners got her five toys, all at the same time. Watch the hyperactive excitement of pure puppy bliss.

Reading Pile: 11/27/12

Submitted by wrathamon on 11/27/12 2:23am

tune01cover.jpg

Tune, Glory & Wild Children

Tune Book One: Vanishing Point- I like Derek Kirk Kim’s work (as infrequent as it is), and would recommend his previous books like Duncan’s Kingdom, Same Difference & Other Stories, and The Eternal Smile: Three Stories. The simplicity of his clean line style really appeals to me and he can capture a great range of emotions in his facial expressions. Like his previous works, Tune features a balance of silliness and real life drama that kind of elevates it beyond the mashing of genres (especially considering he tosses in some sci-fi for good measure in this title). His framing for the panels in this book is an interesting choice, and while I thought at first it might be a kind of waste of spacing it didn't take anything away from the density of the story. It’s a pretty solid read for the $16.99 price tag, so it maintains the quality standard I’ve come to expect from the publisher First Second. Well worth taking the time to check out, and a great read for the teen demographic as well. A-

IMG120510.jpg

Glory #30- The entire issue is worth it for the three page opening sequence with art by Roman Muradov. It’s a flashback of Glory teaming up with Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Pablo Picasso to take down Fantomas. It’s sort of awesome and wins a lot. Then you get the rest of the story and I swear Ross Cambell’s artwork is getting better and better and then you have some amazing coloring from Owen Gieni and Charis Solis. Seriously, if you want a great sci-fi/action/superhero blitz title this one is sort of winning all awesome lately. A

IMG120213.jpg

Wild Children-Innovation without refinement in storytelling kind of defeats the purpose. There are ideas here and the germs of some really potentially interesting stories, but it felt like Ales Kot kind of crammed everything in without taking the time to develop it all into a meaningful narrative. It’s heavy handed and not in a charming way, and while I’m sure there are going to be people who think it’s brilliant and mind-altering……well honestly, that in itself is kind of cliché to me at this point. It’s obvious it takes some influence from Grant Morrison, and it attempts to be self-aware of that and other references in an attempt to not be so obvious. Meta references for the sake of meta references only get you so far. The problem at the core of the book is that I don’t care a single bit about any of the characters within the pages. By the time anyone may or may not have died, I realized I didn’t remember any names and didn’t really care to backtrack. It's all unrefined ideas speaking through empty vessels. I like Riley Rossmo’s art in general, but he does so much these days you can pretty much pick one out of five Image titles and he’s working on it, so this doesn’t have to be the one you settle on. It’s fifty-eight pages of self-defeating Invisibles-lite (granted, with no ads) for $7.99, so not really much of a draw for me. C