Why the Democrats are wrong and other meanderings

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Location: Metro Phoenix, Arizona, United States

I'm too lazy to type anything about me. Read my blog and I'm sure you'll eventually learn a few things.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Palin

As the McCain campaign has apparently confirmed his VP selection with the major media outlets, it seems safe to run with this now.

I don't recall what I've posted about Sarah Palin before, but I like her. She's a strong conservative, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-all the good things in life. I've seen a few complaints about her signing tax increases as governor, but they were modest and were aimed at fiscal responsibility for the state, not as sock-it to the rich or expand the welfare state moves.

I didn't think it was likely to be her, as she was only elected governor in 2006, and she also just recently gave birth to a son with Down's Syndrome. Neither are disqualifying by any means, but I thought (and, I admit, kinda hoped) for someone with more experience (though she's definitely a better choice than several of the more experienced names I'd heard tossed about), and it seemed like she might want to stay closer to home with the baby (yeah, she'll bring him to Washington, but VP involves a lot of travel, etc., etc.).

Her eldest son is scheduled for deployment to Iraq, but that might be postponed or something. I used to believe it would be great for more sons of politicians to serve combat duty (when there's an active combat to serve in), but I've come to realize that they can do a lot more harm than good. If he was the son of a relative-nobody congressman, then big deal. However, as the son of a major party vice presidential nominee, that puts a big target on his back. If terrorist factions discover where he's at, it makes him a major target, and, as such, exponentially increases the danger to those around him. Of course, if his deployment is deferred (cancelled, whatever), you'll have groups from the left who don't understand this (or do, but like cheap political points) whining about privilege and the like.

I've heard of reports that someone on CNN has been talking about her "inexperience" -- are they doing the same for Obama?

There's talk of a recent "scandal" for Palin back in Alaska; the allegation is that she fired the public safety commissioner because of his refusal to fire a state trooper. The trooper in question is her former brother-in-law, was apparently abusive towards her sister, drank beer in his patrol car, and is alleged to have fired a taser at his stepson and threatened to kill Palin's father. At any rate, she never asked him to do so, but several family members and close friends had talked to him about the trooper (it's unclear if even they made explicit calls for his firing), and there was talk about the possible security risk he posed to the governor. Mostly, however, this seems like the kind of legislative investigation launched when a majority of the legislature doesn't like the executive rather than something with substance.

Politically speaking, I'd say picking a woman was a great move. This should win over at least a few disaffected Hillary supporters, though I would not expect any sort of massive movement. I had briefly worried yesterday after someone had mentioned Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a "moderate" senator from Texas (among other things, she supports Roe v. Wade), and had even mentioned to a friend who asked for my thoughts on McCain's possible VP choice that if he was to go for a woman, I'd prefer Sarah Palin, but was worried that Hutchinson would suit his style. Pawlenty also had a bunch of buzz last night; I'd been touting him as a possible McCain VP choice from the time he endorsed last year (though I didn't think McCain would win the nomination at that time). Mostly, I'm just glad it wasn't Ridge (who has been mentioned a lot recently for some reason; he would have made some sense when he was touted in 2000, but not really any now after his forgettable stint as Secretary of Homeland Security), Hutchinson, Crist, or a few others. I never bought the Lieberman hype -- yeah, McCain personally likes Lieberman, and is grateful for his endorsment, but, even if Lieberman was willing to accept, McCain isn't crazy enough to pick him.

I was starting to think that McCain had slightly-better than even shot at winning in November earlier this month, and, now that the VP choices have been made, I'd give him an even better shot.

Also, Sarah Barracuda is an awesome nickname.

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Friday, August 08, 2008

Bill James and Steve Phillips

I recently picked up a copy of The New Bill James Historical Abstract from the library, and read through most of it. I enjoyed the decade-by-decade tidbits. James was entirely too much in love with the win shares stat he created, but, hey, it's his book. The player rankings were interesting. My biggest quibble, or, at least, the only one I'm going to take a major issue with here, is one sentence in his summary of ranking Bonds third all time among left fielders, where he writes "Biggio passed Bonds as the best player in baseball in 1997." I'm not taking issue with the Bonds part; he was the best player of the 1990's, which many people were blinded to, at least partially due to their adoration for overrated media-darling Ken Griffey, Jr. The Biggio part, however, is, er, questionable. Let's start by comparing him with Bonds for 1997-1999 using James's own win shares. Biggio comes out ahead each year, but only by small amounts in 1997 (38-36) and 1998 (35-34), and while 1999 had a larger margin (31-20), Bonds missed significant playing time due to injury (off the top of my head, he played in 102 games, and this was back when he rarely took a day off), so the difference in their win shares per game is negligible. Yes, I'm aware that playing every game at that level is more valuable than playing only 2/3 of the season, but one such season like that is hardly big enough for any pronouncements about who is the better player. Moreover, as James points out in his small update section, Biggio had his own injury problems in 2000 (the book was written in 2000 and James only used stats through 1999 in writing it). Now many people are familiar with the man-crush that Bill James has for Craig Biggio, and could forgive him for declaring Biggio better than Bonds based on three seasons of negligible difference, but Biggio was not leading the majors in win shares during that period. Frank Thomas edged him out in 1997 (39-38), McGwire beat by a solid margin in 1998 (41-35), and he was solidly bested by his own teammate, Jeff Bagwell in 1999 (37-31, plus it looks like Bagwell was bested by Jeter, though I can't find Jeter's total). He wasn't second all of those years, either (I don't have a complete listing, otherwise I'd give his rank each year). While he may have the best combined total for 1997-1999, if you add 1996, he doesn't have the best total on his own team (Bagwell bests him by 1). Bonds, meanwhile, had the best total in the majors in 1991, 1992, 1993, and 1995, plus the second-best total in 1990 and 1996 (losing out to Rickey Henderson and Bagwell, respectively), for a much better established period of domination. The period of 1997-1999 (you could throw in 2000 as well, I guess) is more of a period where no one player dominated before Bonds returned to domination in 2001-2004. Bonds played well enough in those intervening years that you could say he dominated the majors for 15 years (1990-2004), though, of course, James had no way to know about his second run of dominance when writing the book.

One other tidbit from the book; for each decade it mentions someone as "a better man than a ballplayer" and lists Doug Drabek for the 1990's. I find this quite pleasing, as Drabek was my favorite pitcher, while my favorite player when I started following baseball was Darrell Strawberry (okay, I admit, it had something to do with his last name), who I dropped when I discovered his drug problems, in favor of Barry Bonds (who, while his nastiness is overrated, is certainly not in line for such a distinction). Drabek is somewhat forgotten now (I did see him in an interview or two with his son, who I believe was drafted last year), but he won the Cy Young in 1990 (before I started paying attention), and pitched well for the Pirates in the postseason in 1990 and 1991 (taking a tough-luck complete-game loss in each series, for a combined 2-2 record despite an ERA of 1.15 those years), pitching less well in the 1992 NLCS, but not as poorly as his 0-3 record might indicate (overall, he was 2-5 in the postseason, with a 2.05 ERA). He had only one good year after leaving the Pirates (the strike year, though despite his 9-18 record in 1993, his ERA was above league average, adjusted for ballpark), and his post-strike years are best left unmentioned.

Steve Phillips has a poor write-up of the Rangers' playoff chances. He says that if you consider the Yankees to have a chance at the postseason, you have to say the Rangers do as well. Well, yeah, they do have a non-zero chance, but what's this business of comparing them to the Yankees? The Yankees are three games back of the wild card, and 5.5 back in the division, while the Rangers are 6.5 back in the wild card and 12 back in the division. Moreover, we're far enough into the season that run differential matters, and the Rangers are -30 while the Yankees are +54. The Rangers do have a more favorable home-road split remaining, but he doesn't use this to make his point. It seems that we're supposed to believe him primarily on the evidence that he said so, with secondary evidence that they have a high waiver priority than the Yankees. A higher waiver priority is not nothing, but it's unlikely to be enough for the Rangers to make up the 3.5 games they're behind the Yankees, let alone the 6.5 for the wild card.

One other thing I think I neglected to mention: Barry Zito nearly made it through July without a loss. After losing 12 games in the first three months, his only July loss came in his last start of the month, and he's 3-1 since June, with a not terribly impressive 3.77 ERA (coming in three games in San Francisco, one at Shea, and one at San Diego -- pitchers' parks, all, with only one opponent with a good offense (Mets)).

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Friday, August 01, 2008

Trade Deadline Thoughts

I seem to recall a Jayson Stark column from about a month ago stating that the trade deadline is overrated, that big deals rarely get done. I agree -- those big names rarely move, at least in any sort of quantity. This year was one of those rare years.

Stretching back to early July, we've seen CC Sabathia, Rich Harden, Mark Teixeira, Ken Griffey, Jr., Manny Ramirez, and Ivan Rodriguez all change teams, along with lesser names like Jason Bay, Xavier Nady, Damaso Marte, and Jon Rauch. The first four players of the former group, along with the four players of the latter group, all had a fairly high level of trade buzz, so it's not surprising that any of them got traded, though it's surprising that all of them did. Ramirez wasn't really on anyone's trade radar until this week, and there was a mixed level of trade expectation right through the deadline (and mixed reports coming out right past the deadline, as well, since it wasn't formally announced until an hour later ... I heard someone saying that the Dodgers got Bay, along with the then-rumors of the Dodgers getting Ramirez, which, combined, seemed ... unlikely). Ivan Rodriguez to the Yankees seemed to take everyone by surprise; there were some rumors about the Marlins trying to acquire him, though.

I believe the biggest trade winner has to come down to the Cubs, Brewers, or Yankees. The Cubs and Brewers each added a frontline starter, which can be huge for the playoffs (the Brewers also added Ray Durham, who could be useful, but is unlikely to make a major impact). The Yankees shored up their outfield and catching with Nady and Rodriguez, and subtracted Farnsworth from their bullpen while adding Marte. While Rodriguez's reputation outstrips his ability now, he's still an upgrade over whichever Molina brother the Yankees are trotting out there (Jose, I think), and while Farnsworth isn't the horrible pitcher that fans and the media often portray him as (3.65 ERA in the American League, with a home pallpark that favors hitters, and nary a blown save this season), the Yankees were eager to acquire a quality lefty reliever (Marte had a 3.47 ERA with the Pirates, so I wouldn't say he's better than Farnsworth, just lefty). The Yankees filled every hole they have except starting pitching, and they do have Hughes and Kennedy rehabbing in the minors, who should each pitch better than their early-season-(injured-)selves, plus there's the possibility of an August deal for Washburn (who's certainly not close to the Sabathia/Harden caliber, but I'd trust him more than Sidney Ponson).

The biggest deadline oddity, aside form the Astros' seeming belief that they were a Randy Wolf and a LaTroy Hawkins away from playoff contention, is probably the lack of moves from the Mariners. They moved Rhodes, sure, but big deal (or, perhaps I should say, small deal). Obviously, it's hard to move an injured player (Bedard), but they should have moved Ibanez or someone. Perhaps the lack of action is due to uncertainty in the ownership (they're selling, I believe), and a GM with the word interim hung around his neck.

The Teixeira trade provides much of the offensive upgrade the Angels needed. The Griffey trade ... well, that one was just odd. I'm rather surprised that anyone took Griffey.

In non-trade news, the Cubs had a four-game sweep of the Brewers, in Milwaukee. This was very important for the Cubs, as the Brewers had pulled into a tie for first before the series (though they were one game out when the series started, as the Cubs had won and the Brewers lost on Sunday).

Updating a previous item, I mentioned that three players had previously surpassed the former strikeout record in a single season before; I guessed early 1950's, but should have remembered it was the early 1960's. With the expansion to 162 games a season, the strikeout record fell in 1961, 1962, and 1963, with the last year containing what were the three highest strikeout seasons of all time. The records of 1961 and 1962, plus one of the 1963 marks (off the top of my head, 141, 142, and 144), were below the per-game level of the previous record of 138 which had been held by Vince Dimaggio. In a ten-year stretch, the strikeout mark went from 138 to the 189 of Bobby Bonds in 1970.

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