why doesn't a strong bullpen translate to a good record in close games?

statistical analysis in baseball has cast doubt on many of baseball's longstanding truisms, clutch hitting being a prime example.

but, perhaps there is no idea that is more sacred than the notion that good bullpens are the key to winning those pressure-filled, one-run games. baseball traditionalists say point to a team with a bad-record in one-run games, and they'll point to a bullpen who can't finish games.

on its face, this makes complete sense. it makes so much sense, in fact, that despite reams of statistical research that show otherwise, its hard to convince yourself there's any other explanation.

even casual fans can recall games where a reliever is brought in to protect a one-run lead only to give up a two-run homer and lose the game. and there you have it -- empirical evidence that bad bullpens lead to bad records in one-run games. had the team possessed a stronger relief corps, the opposing batters would have been set down in orderly fashion, preserving the one-run win.

this reasoning seems perfectly logical, and i suspect it largely accounts for why the idea persists that bad bullpens lead to poor records in one-run games.

however, other scenarios, and are often overlooked, lead to one-run games as well. say a team with a bad bullpen removes their starting pitcher with a three run lead. the relievers, not suprisingly, struggle and surrender two runs before finishing the game. here, the team with the bad bullpen picks up a win in a one-run game that a team with a good bullpen -- whose relievers would normally give up no runs -- would not.

then look at the corollary to the situation. say a team with a good bullpen removes their starter in a game where they trail by one run. the pen does their job and holds the other team scoreless. unfortunately, the team's offense puts up zeroes the rest of the way too and they lose the game by one run. now, having a good bullpen has actually hurt their record in one-run games by doing their job. conversely, a bad bullpen would be much more likely to turn that one-run deficit into a blowout, thereby avoiding the loss in the one-run game.

essentially, scenarios exist where having a bad bullpen has a negative effect on a team's win-loss record in one-run games. but scenarios also exist where having a bad bullpen has a positive effect on a team's win-loss record in one-run games. the same can be true for good bullpens. and eventually the law of large numbers says these even out.

blogger is buggy

somehow, blogger has decided that the month names should be presented in either castillan or valenciano. not quite sure, so i guess it could be italian or portuguese as well...of course now that i've saved this entry it's reverted back to english names. i swear it was doing it though, otherwise how else as a monoglot would i know that gener = january and maig = may.

nothing against female singers

but they sure have a tendency to suck -- at least in those groups where they share lead vocals with a male counterpart. now based on previous posts, one might assume i think women suck at everything (such as humor) and that i am simply disguising my chauvinism as a critique.

but that would be erroneous. in fact, my favorite rock group of the moment, the long blondes, features a female lead singer. and though i wouldn't quite call her a rocker, feist -- very much a female -- possesses my favorite voice in all of music. and there are others too; i enjoy magneta lane, though they fall short of greatness. and though i'm not a die-hard of the yeah, yeah, yeahs, karen o posseses a terrific voice/scream.

but as i enjoy the arcade fire's latest cd, i'm reminded that shared singing duties between a man and a woman seem to be cursed for failure. when the arcade fire falters, it always seems to coincide with regine chassagne taking the mic. same with the white stripes and meg white. and doubly so with the von bondies.

even when i took in the autolux show at coachella a few years back, the one song where they brought their female drummer up to sing was a disaster. perhaps they were doing it for novelty's sake, becuase it sure wasn't for quality's.

other than the new pornographers -- which is sort of cheating since they're more of an indie supergroup -- does this male/female arrangement ever work?

oscar v. spirit

with each year that passes, i lose more and more faith in the oscars. while the public cares about the academy awards 10x more than all the other awards shows combined, i'm of the opinion that the academy membership has shown a penchant for doing is choosing the wrong movie. i suspect their track record with actors is probably better, but let's not exaggerate their competence in this regard either. julia roberts, best actress for erin brockovich. unbelievably, that is no joke.

so with that in mind, i've decided to test whether the oscars even deserve the label best movie award, let alone best award overall (not that there's much competition outside of film, the grammys, are you fucking with me?). i'd say the last 11 years of best pictures should provide a rough indicator of recent performance.

Year	Oscars	ISPs	Winner
2007	The Departed	Little Miss Sunshine	Oscars
2006	Crash	Brokeback Mountain	Spirits
2005	Million Dollar Baby	Sideways	Spirits
2004	LOTR: The Return of the King	Lost in Translation	Spirits
2003	Chicago	Far from Heaven	TBD
2002	A Beautiful Mind	Memento	Spirits
2001	Gladiator	Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon	Spirits
2000	American Beauty	Election	Oscars
1999	Shakespeare in Love	Gods and Monsters	TBD
1998	Titanic	The Apostle	TBD
1997	The English Patient	Fargo	TBD

by my count, that makes the score 5-2, spirits. i suppose the oscars could sweep the four undecided and earn the narrow victory, but the academy needs to be worried. after all, titanic would have been an all-time flub as a nominee, let alone a winner, and chicago wasn't exactly an inspired selection either. losing either of those matchups clinches the academy's loss.

the projected tally looks to end up 7-4 spirits. ouch, that's a drubbing.

on sequels

that sequels suck is one of those immutable rules of thumb for film, and though music doesn't adhere to the tenet quite as closely, it is by no means exempt.

just this year, a couple cases illustrate this point nicely:

bloc party: silent alarm (excellent), a weekend in the city (basura)
clap your hands, self-titled debut (among the best albums of the year), some loud thunder (three listens and i have no use for it now or anytime in the future).

on the other hand, the most worshipped indie band of its time -- the arcade fire -- has escpaed the sophomore jinx. in fact, i would venture, though many fans would likely find the statement sacreligious, that neon bible outshines their much glorified debut lp, funeral.

i'll admit i didn't love their first album, at least not the way everybody else did. but i do agree wholeheartedly that the uniqueness of its sound clearly distinguished it from its brethren. i don't think this album matches its predecessor in that way. what neon bible does have going for it is that it's infinitely more listen-able. it's bigger, brighter, and while not bolder, it is more energetic.

when and if arcade fire takes their place in the annals of music, i think funeral will be what they are exemplified by. but my concern is not their place in history, it's simply what i like. and i prefer the immediacy of neon bible to their harder-shelled debut.

my new yorker "subscription"

upon my return to sf, i took over the apartment of friends who upgraded in space to accommodate them living together as a couple. i wouldn't call my place luxurious, and certainly not commodius, but it's cute, and i have no real complaints (except the bathroom sucks -- i can barely sit straight on the toilet without my knees hitting the bathtub. and it holds moisture like a ziploc bag, meaning i have to keep the window propped open, which makes for naked, chilly moments each morning as i wait for shower steam to fill the room).

but the best thing about my place has nothing to do with the structure itself. the day i took the keys, a copy of the new yorker awaited me. i confess i let a month go by before telling my friend that her subscription was still being delivered to her old address, but when i finally came clean, i discovered she was receiving copies too.

after a couple months though, the honeymoon ended. i approached the front door each evening imagining that the mailman had slipped the newest edition through the mail slot, but as i opened the door all i found were catalogs and credit card offers. each morning as i rode the streetcar to work and each evening as i rode it home, i scanned the car with green eyes looking for fellow passengers enjoying the magazine by which all magazines are measured.

misery ensued over those next weeks so with my mental health in mind, i decided to purchase my own subscription. but as fate would have it, an issue showed up the next morning. and the following week, the next issue appeared as well. i spoke to my friend and she confirmed all was still well with her subscription.

elation returned. the commute emerged as the highlight of my day. 30 minutes to and for where i could stand, read, learn, and listen to music.

but on a return ride one evening, something happened. i stood without reading material as i'd finished every article of the current issue on the trip to work. so without occupation, my eyes wandered coming to a pause at a young lady's magazine: the new yorker, one with a cover i'd not yet seen. i stealthily checked the date and indeed it was the next issue.

i scurried home from the train stop eager to pick up the newest issue only to be confronted by coupon books and paper copies of bank statements. sure i was dismayed, but i could wait one more day for it to arrive. but one more day turned into a week and still no magazine showed up. and the same the following week. and such has been the pattern since. a new yorker arrives, then a hiatus where nothing shows up for the next week or two.

and so i'm stuck. missing issues of what i love to read more than anything else, yet feeling like the freeness of my partial subscription is just enough to justify me assuming the full yearly cost.

oh, what to do?

out of red ribbons

some strange things happen when you work in the world of online gaming (the kind that involves money, not mages). especially with proprietors who partake in their product (apparently they haven't listened to big's ten crack commandments "never get high on your own supply").

in my experience of the normal corporate world, when things go pear-shaped, they examine how their business operates (good) and look down for peons they can point to as not pulling their weight (not necessarily good). but with gambling types, their thought processes don't quite meet the smell test when it comes to rationality. instead of delving into their books or their processes, they look to karma, luck, energy, and whatever else a gambler might depend on to beat the house at their own game.

in our case, they looked to feng shui. and when that didn't work, the answer was once again, feng shui. after all, if business is slow, what better way to attract more customers than rearranging the desks and throwing a bonzai tree on a few desks.

so one monday, i arrived in the office to find cream-colored gourds hanging from the water pipes running along the celings. apparently business remained sour though, because a few weeks later, we had another feng shui expert do the walk-through.

no, no, no. gourds were all wrong for this place. we need to hang red ribbons. oh, and here's the check for $3600. i'll send over that crimson tape as soon as i get that payment.

but this past evening, as the last to leave for the day from my floor, while walking around shutting off the lights, i noticed something pecuilar. we still had gourds, while all the offices had ribbons.

where's my positive energy? don't we get some too?

i've seen god...he's called adam gopnik

in the world of magazine journalism, there's the new yorker and everything else. simply to appear in the magazine indicates a mastery of the writing craft. but even among this distinguished company, adam gopnik emerges as special. everything you wish you could have observed, he observes for you. no point goes unaddressed, no angle unexplored and the eloquence with which he spells these ideas out, unmatched.

there's an old story which gets repeated at the beginning of every journalism class across the country. during an interview for a lofty editorial position, the managing editor of a revered journalism organziation asks the interviewee about his qualifications. the interviewee boasts that he can walk into the newsroom and without exchanging a single word with the writers pick out the finest of the bunch.

sure enough, the two of them step out of the office, the writer takes a sweeping glance of the room, and picks out the star wordsmiths. dumbfounded, the ME asks how he did it. simple, the writer says, just look for those whose lips move as they write.

great writing engages your senses. though letters are just curved marks on paper (or computer screen) they somehow become much more in the hands of a skilled practitioner. entire scenes are painted in one's mind, each sentence another brush stroke bringing the picture one step closer to completion. yet simultaneously, each word seems whispered in your ear, as intimate as that first great conversation with a future partner.

it's the rhythm of the words that really captivates me. the picture is great, but without the audio seeems hollow. and here adam gopnik excels. for anyone who doubts that, they simply need to read the opening paragraph of his latest contribution, shootings. the topic is familar: the virginia tech massacre. but to not hear, or more accurately, be haunted by his words, you'd need to be dead yourself.

if i could do it again

every vacation i've ever taken out of the country (my last trip to puerto rico counts) has left me with at least one memory i'll take with me forever. which is not to say every trip's been perfect.

but unlike most places i've visited, i could get puerto rico dead right the next time around.

arrive in san juan on friday night and blast off that jet lag with a long night of drinking and carousing with the locals. get a decent night's rest (4-5 hours), recharge with a cafe con leche, and wander around old san juan for the day. clean up, watch the cockfights, clean up, and use your winnings from picking the winning chicken to have a nice dinner on calle fortaleza. then repeat friday night with one difference: don't stop till the sun's fuly risen, head straight to the airport and catch a puddle jumper to one of the islands (vieques or culebra).

wash off in the salty ocean and pass out on the beach. alternate the following for the next three days: swimming, snorkeling, scuba diving, sunbathing, drinking, eating, kayaking, the biobay, sport fishing, and sleeping (preferably outdoors, after applying strong bug repellant). mix activities when possible. catch the charter plane back to san juan and for tuesday night's galleria.

if you have another day or two go walk through the rain forest.

if not, go home and revel in a great trip.