Purgatory Online

Monday, September 15, 2003

Here's an odd little quirk of the schedule - there are eleven games on today's schedule, and, with the exception of the Cincinnati-Pittsburgh contest, all of them feature one team that's still in contention and one team that isn't. In other words, no head-to-head scratch-n-claw baseball goodness, just spoiler madness times ten.

Tomorrow, though, Minnesota and the White Sox - currently tied - start a series that may well determine the AL Central, and Florida and Philadelphia will battle it out for the N.L. Wild Card lead (with Los Angeles and the all-but-eliminated Diamondbacks also matching up). With the Angels out of it, I'm starting to follow other teams a bit more closely, with a particular eye on the A.L. Central - the Twins and Sox are both ex-hometown teams of mine, and it's shaping up to be a very interesting last two weeks. The Twins have, by far, the easier schedule of the two, with three against Cleveland, three against Chicago, and SEVEN against Detroit, while the Sox have to endure three against Minnesota, three against New York, and seven against Kansas City. But Chicago is the better team, I think, in just about every way. Those seven games the Twins play against Detroit are huge. Realistically, Minnesota has to be thinking that they'll win at least five of those, which puts enormous pressure on the White Sox to win five games against Kansas City. PLUS they'll have to win as many against New York as the Twins win against Cleveland, AND take two out of three from Minnesota at the Metrodome. A pretty tall order.

I think that the White Sox are fortunate that they're starting with the Twins; it's a chance to build and defend a small lead instead of having to slog through a bunch of games with tough opponents while trying to keep pace with a team that's playing also-rans. But it also means that this upcoming series is critical for the Sox in a way that it isn't for the Twins. Minnesota can possibly afford to fall a couple of games back. Chicago absolutely cannot.

Friday, September 12, 2003

Interesting little featurette on Derrick Turnbow at the Angels' official site today. You may recall Turnbow as the Rule V draft pick who sat on the Angels' 25-man roster for an entire year during the 2000 season (because that's the way Rule V picks work; you have to keep them on your big club for an entire year before you can designate them for assignment), during which he pitched 38 mostly meaningless innings. Turnbow is now out of options, meaning that he has to make the team out of spring training next year or be traded, released, or put on the waiver wire. So far, Turnbow's relief work with the Angels has been pretty solid - since being called up, he's given up two hits and no earned runs in six innings, while facing a pretty even mix of lefties and righties. Of course, six innings is way too shallow a pool to go diving for pearls in, but one statistic does raise my eyebrows - zero walks. For a guy who throws 98 mph, that bears watching.

Meanwhile, as Scot Shields continues to worsen with each passing start, Bill Stoneman has confirmed that acquiring a starting pitcher will be a priority in the offseason.

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Hey, cool beans! King Kaufman quotes me at Salon.com today on the subject of why there are very few football blogs. He exerpts part of an email I sent him, which I'll reproduce here in full:

King,

I think that there are probably a lot of factors at work here, but primarily I'd attribute it to the fact, in terms of statistical evaluation methods, baseball is so much further ahead of football (which itself may be a function of the nature of the two games, but that's outside the scope of your question). Virtually all of the baseball bloggers I read rely, to greater or lesser extents, on statistics to serve as the great steam engine that drives their discussion, and - just speculating here - I suspect that's because the nerds that have adopted blogging are the same nerds who have an understanding of OPS, EqA, RARP, and the like and use them as their preferred metrics. In football, statistics are a lot simpler, and mean less, because the situations are a lot more widely varied. Take yards/pass attempt - interesting, but the raw data that goes into that is compiled with all kinds of context (down, yard to 1st down, time left, score differential, type of pass, type of pass rush/coverage, QB, receiver, etc., etc.). In baseball there's a batter trying to get a hit, and a pitcher trying to get him out. What variables there are tend to be binary - left/right handed, runner in scoring position or not. Compared to football, it's easier to figure out which statistics are meaningful (and look how long it's taken anyway).

I think baseball also generates news from more events than football. Most bloggers follow a particular team, since the time and effort that goes into a blog is such that they're more of a labor of love than a casual hobby. If a football blog only followed one team, there'd be a huge post once a week, and the rest would be updates on injuries or potential trades, or speculation about personnel or strategy decisions for the upcoming game that would get old real fast in the online world. With baseball, you play at least five times a week, so you can constantly adjust what you're whining about, plus talk about the minor leagues.

Finally, like I said before, running a blog is a lot of work (mine, in fact, is on indefinite hiatus while the Angels play out their string). So because all the early adopters are baseball bloggers, it's likely that some of the potential football bloggers are already blogging baseball, and unwilling to take on yet another time-suck.

Anyway, that's what occurs to me right now. Hope it helps.

Sean Smith


If you're coming here from Salon, welcome, and feel free to look around (I recommend the archived posts from around World Series time last year). For those wondering about the hiatus, rest assured my batteries are nearly recharged. And I've almost learned all the new faces on the roster.

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