Baseball stats school: lesson 1
How is a .269 hitter just as effective as a .350 hitter
and Mike Cameron kicks ass

As we all know, Ichiro was an absolute phenomenon last year, coming from Japan ball to only lead the AL in batting average, and he's one of those players, with his sheer athleticism, that pegs the "intangibles" meter. Nothing I say in this rant is meant to take ANYTHING away from his god-like baseball prowess. BUT....

BA (batting average) is severely over-rated. ESPN has developed a great stat, which I believe is a as good a measure of a players at-the-plate productivity as any single number can be: The OPS. It's simple, add a player's On Base Percentage to his Slugging Percentage (SLG) and get his OPS (On Base % Plus Slugging %). I'll save you the nuances of these numbers, but click here for a simple explanation)

And here we go. Click here for the 2001 Regular season batting numbers, and come to your own conclusions.

And if you follow my reasoning, and see Mike Cameron has a OPS a mere .006 less than Ichiro, and you see that for many practical purposes, Cameron was essentially just as effective with a bat as 2001 AL MVP Ichiro, and you also understand that Cameron won a Gold Glove -- as well as Ichiro -- and you just begin to understand: a) how good Cameron is; and b) how it is the Mariners could win 116 games last year (can you say "mind-bogglingly good defense").

So, lets look at AL centerfielders, who played in a majority of their teams games last year, on ESPN's sortable fielding stats.

The stat explanations are at the bottom of the page, as well as qualification standards. I think "Fielding %" is a little misleading, especially when Mike Cameron is 8th on this list, but only .012 (1 in 83.3 -- over a 162 game season) "worse" than the best in the AL, so I have chosen Range Factor, and it is also good to look at "Zone Rating."

Anyhow, lets cross-reference those ratings with these players OPS's: here's 2001 AL OPS ratings
Bernie Williams: 917
Carlos Beltran: 876
Jose Cruz: 857
Mike Cameron: 832
these represent the top offensive every-day center-fielders in the AL.
Now how do we quantify defensive prowess? And how important is defense to the quality of a centerfielder? Well, in this man's humble opinion, the rankings of "defensive importance" to the eight positions (excluding pitcher) are as follows:
1) catcher
2) shortstop
3) 2nd base
4 Centerfielder
so defense is very important to centerfielder rankings. much more important than, say, a first baseman, or even left fielder (two traditional dumping grounds for one-dimensional players).
Now, I remind you Cameron won a Gold Glove last year, and looking at the fielding stats, I'd say he rates pretty favorably defensively with all three of the AL CF's ahead of him on the OPS chart. And to mitigate the OPS standing: Cameron led AL CF's in RBI (110); was 3rd in runs (106 for Beltran, 102 for Williams, 99 for Cameron); and led in stolen bases (6th in the AL, w/ 2 more than Cruz).

Okay, I'm rambling, put here's the point behind all these numbers: Cameron was rated as one of the top three outfielders in defense last year (judged by his Gold Glove) and was a offensivley productive as any other AL centerfielder. That has ME saying "Ken Griffey WHO???

Don't get me wrong, folks, I'd be willing to take him back... go ahead and stick him in left.

Network executives... go figure.

I read a Matt Groening interview once in which he spoke of his digust for network executives, telling anecdotes of how they would come to him with "notes" to somehow make the show more "appealing". Apparently, as he tells it, they had NO idea why The Simpsons was so succesful, they just knew that it was, and they would come to him with "ideas" about how to make the show "better." Of course, he basically ignored them, and thank god, because the result has obviously been the greatest show in Television history. He also spoke of the Network's complete, baffling inability to grasp Futurama, sticking it in the 7:00 timslot (where, frankly, King of the Hill should be, followed by a 7:30 Malcom in the Middle, then Simpsons, then Futurama) and telling him that the character Bender was "too mean!" (okay, see, the least "kid friendly, family oriented" show of that sitcom lineup was Futurama, and they had it in the leadoff spot. C'mon, every Joe Buttfuck off the street can tell you that the simplest way to program on prime time T.V. is to stick the "safest" shows early, then bring out the heavy hitters later. Think about it, like NBC's famous Thursday night lineup from the late 80's: Cosby Show at 8:00, followed by whatever Cosby spinoff/new show NBC was trying to push, Cheers at 9:00, then Night Court. An undeniable progression of "racier" less "kid friendly" shows, before the "hour-long drama" at 10:00, which was Hill Street Blues as I recall, which set the standard for the "gritty cop show," then later LA Law).

Now, I'm an unemployed slacker, with no formal business education, and no real exposure to the inner workings of the entertainment business, and I can program FOX's Sunday night lineup better than THEY can.

I add to this general disdain for Network Execs. the fact that David Letterman was practically driven off T.V., and certainly away from CBS, because he kept getting into "fights" with the network. The only reason he Didn't go to ABC, as I am led to understand, is that he is such a class guy, he felt bad about the whole Ted Koppel thing, and didn't want to be the man "responsible" for taking him off the air. Anyhow, the very fact that CBS would want to fuck with Letterman shows their ignorance and disdain for quality entertainment. This guy set the stage for Everyone in Late Night post Carson; yes, including Jay Leno. Jay Leno started blatatly copying Letterman's "schtick," which is the spirit that drives comedic entertainment. All great comedic perfromers have a unique "schtick:" Jerry Seinfeld, Letterman, Conan O'brien, John Stewart, Chris Rock, Dennis Miller, to name just a few. But I digress.

So, I come to find out that FOX, in it's infinite wisdom, has put the axe to Family Guy (again!) and Futurama. Frankly, I am so used to the freguent, and completely inexplicable, "cancellations" of the Family Guy as to not really even fell my hackles raised, but cutting Futurama puts me through the fucking roof. Granted, it was a far cry from The Simpsons, but isn't that like saying the Mariners are a ways away from being like the Yankees? And beyond that, the fact that the Tick only survived for 6 or so episodes (although, admittedly, it wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders, I was pretty sure it would settle into a groove, and get me watching the Thursday night Family Guy/Tick combo) is leading me to believe what I hate to ponder: the true formula for success in mass entertainment is numbing mediocrity.

god bless America

Well, once again I am not even Attempting to put the happenings of 3^3 into words. You can call it a cop-out if you will, but I will remind you that all the pictures I took -- all 168 of them, at least a third of which are useless -- can be found here

What I WILL tell you is that Rich and Julie were nice enough to drive me up to Coupeville to get my car. I don't know if they drove me up there so much as dropped me off, as they were planning on spending the day driving around and seeing what there is to see in the Deception Pass/Fidalgo Island area.

Wait, hold on. My car was in Coupeville. Yes, that's right, as we (those of us who had left The Cabin Sunday afternoon with the intent of "caravanning" up to Deception pass and through the Skagit Valley Tulip Fields) were making our way up Whidbey, my car crapped out along the road. After some head-scratching and road-side troubleshooting, "we" determined it must be the fuel pump crapped out, seeing as how the engine seemed to be showing the signs of fuel starvation.

By the time we re-gathered, threw my shit into DanG's truck, and I hopped into the back of Mike & Mary's Kia, a couple hours had already passed. Angie got hold of AAA and used her "free 5-mile tow" membership privleges to "order" a tow truck, which would take my car to a nearby, closed (because it was Sunday) repair garage. Of course, rather than wait, I just left my key in the car -- half expecting/hoping someone could just steal it (although it would be difficult seeing how it wasn't running) and we continued on our way.

There were no Tulips, b.t.w., they haven't bloomed yet.

So yesterday afternoon the repair shop guy calls and tells me it was the timing belt, and it was fixed. How the timing belt breaks and the engine doesn't get munched is beyond me. Maybe I just got lucky.