I heard Bruce Bochy explain a few years ago that he doesn't split up pitchers by type, but by how many innings they tend to throw. He wanted to split up Jonathan Sanchez and Barry Zito not because they were both left-handed, but because both pitchers will often have games where they use up their pitch count limits early in the game. If they were back-to-back in the rotation, he would tax his bullpen more than if he stuck Matt Cain in between them. Cain's consistency in lasting into the 7th or 8th innings gives his bullpen a chance to rest after one of Sanchez's wild days where he would get knocked out in the 3rd.

Ross' splits give some hope that he can be effective as a reliever. The first time through the order as a starter, his career BABIP against is .289 and his OPS against is .585. Second time through: .354 and .811. Third time through: .432 and 1.137.

One of my favorite baseball memories was sitting in the third deck at the Oakland Coliseum for Game 1 of the 2003 ALDS. I was sitting right straight above and behind the plate, so I could see clearly exactly where the ball crossed the plate. Pedro Martinez' command that night was unbelievable. He consistently painted the black all night. And by painting the black, I mean that 1/3 of the ball would be over the black of the plate, and 2/3 of the ball would be off the plate. It was ridiculous. None of the other pitchers I watched from that angle had anywhere near that kind of consistency towards the edge of the strike zone. You can't do that unless you can repeat your delivery flawlessly.

Well then I agree that it's really unfair to jump to conclusions about what the data means. How is this different from what makes people like or dislike other people in general? We like people who talk to us over those who don't. We like people who are tall more than who are short. We like people who are good-looking over those who are ugly. We like people who are extroverts more than those who are introverts. None of those things *should* matter in evaluating job performance of any kind, but they do.

"Suppose that a player has worked hard all his life. Everyone around the game knows it and everyone, even people on other teams, admires him for that work ethic." Suppose that a player doesn't speak English very well. How would such a player get to be known by English-speaking broadcasters for his work ethic in order to be praised for it on broadcasts? Can you separate out the linguistic barrier from any other sort of "nativisim" from the data?

I disagree that the kid would rank all those things as a 9. Depends on the kid. My kids have gotten balls tossed to them several times. They were happy at first, but every single time, they had completely misplaced the ball in their rooms by the next day, and forgotten about it. At first, my oldest kid was probably a 3, and my second kid about a 5. By the next day, it's probably about 1 and 2. Now, they barely remember the events. Meanwhile, an adult may not enjoy the initial moment better, but they may hold on to the enjoyment longer. What's more important, the initial peak pleasure of the moment, or the long-term enjoyment? It's not so simple an equation.

Oh, orange-seated Oakland Coliseum, how I don't miss you. But on the other hand, oh, pre-Mount-Davis bleachers, how I do miss you so.

The act of measuring defense could lead to not just changes in positioning, but also changes in personnel. Seems to me that we've seen a lot more defense-first shortstops in recent years than we did a decade ago.

The A's actually dabbled in computers before Steve Boros, when Billy Martin was still the manager. I recently got my hands on a 1982 Oakland A's media guide. On the first page, they list everybody in the front office, and one of the employees listed is Jay Alves. Alves is now a Rockies executive, but back then, his job in the Oakland front office was "Apple Computer Operator". I have no idea what the Apple Computer was used for, but I suppose one could ask Alves.

I'm not quite sure what to make of this article, although I have once been beaned during a baseball game.

The Oakland listing has the area code 415, but Oakland's area code has since changed to 510. Did you dial 415 or 510?

OK, you made me read the Swedish version. Most of it seems pretty straightforward. A couple of items of note: 1. It contains a pre-sabermetric-era explanation of the various slots in the batting order. The #2 hitter "should be good at bunting or otherwise placing the ball in play, as well as be fast." 2. They call a putout a "bränning", which literally means a "burning." You're not out, you're "burned". This is a term copied over from the Swedish stick-and-ball game "brännboll". 3. I love the Swedish word for batter: "slagman". And beyond that (although this isn't in Wikipedia, but I've seen it elsewhere), I really dig the Swedish term for "batter's box": "slagmansruta".

I think that possibly this might could be an excellent article, perhaps.

I\'m an A\'s season ticket holder, and I live just a short drive from the Coliseum, so moving to Fremont will certainly inconvenience me. But if I\'m Lew Wolff, the Fremont move is a no-brainer. I\'d do it in a heartbeat. If I can\'t move to San Jose, this is the next best thing. The A\'s probably don\'t care if the crowd is more corporate. In fact, that\'s the whole point of moving to Fremont--it\'s way way closer to where all the corporations are. Basically, what the A\'s are doing is keeping the Alameda County fans, and swapping the Contra Costa County fans for Santa Clara county fans. And when you compare the business revenues between the traded counties, the trade is a no-brainer. Just to take one statistic: In 2003, Santa Clara County businesses generated $55 billion in payroll, while Contra Costa businesses generated just $15 billion. http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/map/03data/06/013.txt http://www.census.gov/epcd/cbp/map/03data/06/085.txt And that\'s not counting all the venture capital money that lives just across the Dumbarton Bridge in Palo Alto (San Mateo County). I\'ve worked in high tech in all of these counties--met with many of the big businesses and VCs around here, seen the differences in affluence and culture between Silicon Valley and the Oakland/Contra Costa area. To me, it\'s flat-out obvious that the Fremont location will create access to way, way more money than being in Oakland. I won\'t miss the Coliseum, because I already miss it, and have already mourned it. It was a lovely, pleasant stadium before, but Mount Davis was and is a travesty.

The traffic in that area has historically been awful, particularly southbound, because I-880 used to go from four lanes each direction in Fremont down to just two lanes just across the county line in San Jose, so traffic would always back up right around the proposed ballpark area. That whole area just south of the ballpark area has been one big construction project for the last several years, to widen the freeway, improve the overpasses/exchanges, add carpool lanes, etc. That project is almost over now, as the southbound carpool lane just opened up this week. So while traffic has always been awful in the past, it should start improving considerably, oh, just about right now. Also, a vote on a sales tax increase to extend BART to Santa Clara County, which would put a new station a little over a mile from the proposed stadium, looks like it is barely passing. So the news is getting better on the transportation front, just as it\'s getting worse on the funding part.