https://twitter.com/nickcocco18/status/1299097093685104648?s=21
It was Yeah Jetes and Donnie Baseball’s idea to have the 42 second moment of silence and the Mets agreed.
We’re now more than half way through the (ir)regular season for more than half the teams (and more than a third done for the Cardinals). Let’s see where we are at: The hated Dodgers have, unsurprisingly, the best record in baseball (24-9) and 538 has them as a “lock” to make the playoffs (>99%). My new Cubs (18-12, 93%) would be tied for 2nd seed in the NL draw with the Braves (97%), followed by Sabo the dog’s Padres (19-14, 89%). OTOH Sabo’s new Reds (13-17, 43%) would not make the playoffs, while my Red Sox (10-21, 4%), with the 3rd worst record in baseball, are toast.
Yesterday, there were eight MLB games… all scheduled for seven innings. WTF next ???/? Well… how about a Sabo Bowl !!!1!
| Sabo Bowl | #10001 |
|---|---|
| Who | Kyle Hendrick (3-3), Tyler Mahle (0-1) |
| Where | Great American Ballpark, Cincinnati |
| When | August 28, 2020; 4:10 PM PDT |
| How Much | -125 Cubs |
| What | Sabo has yapping/taunting rights over me |
| Why | I’d like to flip that script |
| How | I need a win from my new Cubs |
2 Likes
This has worked out perfect for the Sox. They get to reset the luxury tax in a weird short year without destroying attendance numbers, and then the high draft pick is just a cherry on top. Hopefully they can strive to be even worse as the season winds down and wrap this thing up with the #1 pick.
STEVE COHEN WINS THE BID
METS SWEEP A DH AGAINST THE YANKEES VIA WALKOFF
METS DYNASTY CONFIRMED
1 Like
lol Yankees. Down 7 in a row.
1 Like
Yapping rights confirmed!
1 Like
| #36 | The First Ever Double Sabo Bowl !!!1! |
|---|---|
| Who | Yu Darvish (5-1), Alec Mills (3-2) -vs- Trevor Bauer (3-1), Tejay Antone (0-1) |
| Where | Great American Ballpark, Cincinnati OH |
| When | August 29, 2020; 1:10 PM PDT |
| How Much* | -102 Cubs, +128 Reds, +1671 push |
| What | Sabo retains yapping/taunting rights over me. His new Reds won yesterday’s Sabo Bowl #10001. |
| Why | I’d like to flip that script… or at least have it be a free-for-all. |
| How | I need my new Cubs to outscore Sabo the dog’s new Reds by combined score in today’s 7-inning doubleheader… or at least have a combined score that is tied. |
*: No vig line from All-Star Sabo-Metrics. Vegas Insider Consensus is -105 pick in 1st game, Cubs +105, Reds -115 in 2nd game.
2 Likes
1 Like
How much does the loss of a killer closer matter? The Jays are crushed at Jordan Romano going on the IL with a middle finger injury. He’s great. 1.2 ERA, can be relied on for 3-4 outs every other day.
But are these small number of outs really that valuable when compared to a replacement guy, say at 4.0 ERA or whatever? What’s the EV difference in having an amazing closer versus an average closer for 9-12 outs per week (3-4 days at 3-4 outs each)? My intuition says it isn’t as big of a deal as the general consensus says it is.
Romano: 1.2 ERA, 3.5 outs per outing and 3.5 days per week.
= 12.25 outs per week, which is 1.36 sets of 9 innings.
= 1.2 x 1.36 = gives up 1.63 runs per week
Random guy: 4.0 ERA, 3.5 outs per outing and 3.5 days per week
= 12.25 outs per week, which is 1.36 sets of 9 innings.
= 4.0 x 1.36 = gives up 5.44 runs per week
Meaning a having a random guy instead of Romano will mean the Jays give up 3.81 additional runs per week. Hmm, maybe that is a medium big deal.
A few issues with your numbers:
-
That is way too many IP for a reliever. A top reliever gets at most about 80 IP a year, which would be about 3 a week. That matches up with Romano - 14.2 IP in 30 games.
-
Romano’s 1.2 ERA is unsustainable. I like him but he’s no where near this good. He’s got some good luck in terms of hit sequencing. First, he’s given up 2 HRs, but only 2 ERs. It’s not like he’s not letting people on - WHIP of about 1, he’s just getting very lucky that they are not scoring. I’d say his true talent is much more likely to be an ERA somewhere in the low-mid 2’s. Still good/great but not amazing (to be fair almost no relievers consistently have ERA’s below 2).
Thus, at 3 IP a week you looking at around half a run a week saved or about 15 runs a year. Now those should be mostly high-leverage runs so still quite valuable. As reference, Rivera topped out at about 4 WAR - which is good, but outside the top-10 in the AL for pitchers. On the other hand, his WPA - which accounts for leverage - had him in the top 5 for AL pitchers most years.
Putting this all together, assuming we accept the leverage calculations in WPA, an super-elite closer is worth about 5 wins a season over a replacement pitcher. If you want to compare to a mediocre closer, it’s probably about 2-3 wins.
Cool, thanks! So it sucks but isn’t a huge deal to lose him. My intuition was better than my sloppy math :D
And this is for a 162-game season, right? We only get 37% of a season this year, so it’s only like 2.5WAR * .37 = 0.93WAR?
Sure, you are right that you’d need to discount for partial season. On your calculation I’d note the caveat that when you lose your closer and replace him with your top set-up man there is a cascading effect as every other reliever has to move up to replace the role above him.
So while you can’t just compare the elite reliever you lost to a the guy you call up to replace him (since that guy will be taking low-leverage innings), you also can’t just compare the elite reliever to the guy that steps up and replaces him as closer. Your calculation would work for the pre-season decision whether to get an elite closer or a mediocre closer, but doesn’t fully work for the in-season loss of an elite closer.
Round about way of saying it’s complicated and I don’t know a good way of fully approximating.
1 Like
Sabo visited Great American back on May 8, 2018. He was chauffeured in from Beech Grove IN just for the game. The Reds run a well organized and friendly dog game. They usually run four a season, along with a nice pregame doggy boondoggle. The dog seating section was perhaps be the most premium in MLB: field level down the 1B line. The (his not yet new) Reds beat the Mets that evening. Do I really need to add that Sabo thoroughly enjoyed himself? He’s a good guy !!!1!
Sabo got on the field too. I got teased by a Cincinnati cop: “WTF, your dog has a Padres shirt on, you have a Red Sox shirt and a White Sox hat on, and you’re on the field at a Reds game”. I had unexpectedly just got a free pale hose lid at the Guaranteed Rate two days prior and had adopted it as my lucky road trip hat.
With today’s game, Great American Ballpark will have hosted six Sabo Bowls this season. This ties Sabo the dog’s home field: Petco Park. The next three Sabo Bowls are scheduled for Wrigley Field, one more than Gillette Stadium has hosted. Berkeley Memorial, Dodger, NRG, SDCCU and US Bank have each hosted a Sabo Bowl.
| Sabo Bowl | Ten Thousand and Eleven |
|---|---|
| Who | Tyler Chatwood (2-2), Luis Castillo (0-4) |
| When | Sunday August 30th, 10:10 AM PDT |
| How Much | -150 Reds |
I could have gained yapping|taunting rights over Sabo when my new Cubs lost the second “half” of Sabo Bowl #36 yesterday. However, I have declined to do so, because that would just be stupid. Folks, we are now in a state of free-for-all: Sabo can yap all he wants, and I can taunt him all I care to. Sabo & me agreed: there won’t be another Double Sabo Bowl like this stupid fiasco.
This possible outcome was because my new Cubs won the first “half” 3-0. This concept of a two game series and a combined score tiebreaker is quite common in soccer. However, TIL it’s antithetical to baseball. I was pretty much locked into not losing when my new Cubs took it to the bottom of the 7th (puke) of the 2nd game leading 5-4… as even if they lost, It’d still take letting the game get tying up -and then- giving up a walk-off grand slam for me to “lose”. What a senseless sweat: I “win” whenever my team loses the game 5-6 on a WP.
1 Like
Yesterday all 30 MLB teams played… for only the third time this season, and the first time since day four. It was fun while it lasted…
I choose to believe that this is because Joey Votto insists on having the doggos near him when he’s fielding. I don’t care if it’s true or not, it’s true in my head.
