Friday Open Thread: Memorial Weekend Edition

1. No brushes that close. I do remember in high school driving to a Royals game and traffic came to a pretty quick stop at the Grandview triangle and I wasn’t really paying attention. I swerved into the next lane at the last second and was pretty lucky there was no other car in the other lane or else that could have been really bad.

2. I love that play in Ichiro’s first or second year where he guns down Terrence Long at third and Terrence didn’t even think there would be a play. And of course, Bo throwing out Harold Reynolds at the Kingdome.

3. I think they tend to show defensive value over the long-term, but to be honest, I don’t know enough about the methodologies to make much of a judgement. I suppose it depends on which stats too.

4. Driving to St. Louis and back today to buy a car. No plans other than that. Will probably grill, take my wife and kids to the park a lot, and throw things at the TV screen when the Royals pop up with the bases loaded.

1. Boundary Waters, putting up a bear bag, 2 days from any where, a tree falls with a pointed limb that just misses me. If that tree had hit my shoulder or head, I would have been fucked.

2. Bo getting Reynolds. I love when they show the play on MLB network. Reynolds never has anything to say. Jeter flip is up there to. I hate the Yanks, but hate Jeremy Giambi more.

3. I like the idea, but actually run my own to see any yearly trends. Sample sizes are too small to get good comparable run values for each position.

4. One day of cutting trees in my uncles pasture. One day of relaxing. Another day with my wife’s family visiting graves. Her family is huge into visiting the dead.

1. March 9, 2009 I had a bad car accident where I was broadsided by an f150 that was going 65 MPH. It was my fault. I pulled out in front of him and literally never saw him until I looked up and the grill was smashing into my side of the car. I walked away from the accident with a minor rotator cuff tear, and my daughter had some minor psychological trauma, but was ok after a few mri exams. Side airbags work…

2. None specifically come to mind, but Asdrubal Cabrera make a crazy play the other day to start a double play. It was ridiculous. Early Andruw Jones patrolling CF for the Braves was pretty awesome too. I’m more of a fan of the plays that we know are tough that look effortless, guys like Jim Edmonds piss me off.

3. I have an opinion on this that is most likely not popular with saber types. I tend to think that defense is very difficult to judge by using stats alone. Just my opinion, but I do think that scouts have a better sense of these things than number crunchers like that majority of us on this site. Offense is a completely different thing however.

4. Working Saturday. gott love the damn car biz… Sunday will be spent giving a singing performance in the afternoon in Branson, followed by working over a 12 pack and the brisket that will have been smoking at home all day. Monday will be composed of seeing if I can get Paul Baum the young right fielder for NWA promoted to Omaha, or KC in MLB the Show 2011.

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1. I have had a couple. Pretty serious car wreck in high school, but the closest was when I was doing fieldwork in Svalbard (above the Arctic Circle). We had a polar bear come into camp at 2 am. Thankfully, our trip wire system worked and scared him away. We would have been like Little Debbie snack cakes for him, rolled up in our sleeping bags.

2. Willie Mays catch. Outstanding range and incredible throw with all of his momentum moving away from the play.

3. I wonder if it is truly quantifiable. Seems like n will be pretty small in all cases.

4. My daughter’s birthday is Sunday, so will be grilling steaks. Cursing at the Royals.

1. When I was 12 I had Appendicitis that wasn’t noticed for a long time, and gave me septicemia. Still have faint skin blotches from that infection, which I’m told left me as close to dieing as you can get without actually doing so.

2. That Dewayne Wise wall catch in the ninth of Mark Buerhles’s perfecto. Great play, with everything on the line. Hate the Sox, but that was fun to watch live.

3. No more or less than “eye”. There is way too much subjectiveness and confirmation bias in eyeballing players. Stats have inherent weaknesses with sample sizes and other things. Combine the two and you have something approaching reliability I would think.

4. Taking my son to a Hockey tournament on Saturday. Other than that it looks to be fairly dull. Weather forecast is awful.

1. What is your closest brush with death or at least serious bodily injury?
The summer after my senior year of high school/before freshman year of college, I fell asleep driving and drove my car through a steel-reinforced brick wall. Not a scratch on me…but it seems like I should have died then. Might be others I’m not thinking of…

2. What is your favorite defensive baseball highlight?
My favorite bad defensive highlight is probably the jose canseco getting hit in the head by a routine flyball to turn it into a home run play.
For good defense I’m not sure. I really like that Mark Buehrle no look backwards through the leg globe toss play. i think that was opening day of 2010. The willie mays catch is obviously a classic.

3. How much do you trust modern defensive statistics?
I trust them more in the aggregate. Looking at any single one can’t tell you a whole lot. But looking at UZR, plus/minus, etc. as a whole, over a large sample of work, is pretty instructive.

4. What are your Memorial Weekend plans?
Working overtime tomorrow, family cabin for the day on Sunday. No real plans for Memorial Day proper, but taking Tuesday off to run some errands.

I’m going on a few road trips this summer and I’m thinking of buying a GPS for my car. Anyone have any words of wisdom, re: garmin vs. tomtom? features I should look for?

Near Death: Circa 1997, left Scottsbluff at 8 or 9 at night after a full day of grueling meetings, headed to Norfolk for the weekend to see my lady (who is now my wife). Its an 8 or 9 hour drive…I pulled over in Ord Ne and took a snooze, woke up, got about 20 miles farther and nodded off at the wheel…drifted across the centerline, off the other side of the road, came to, over corrected, and did the fish tail thing back and forth for a couple of hundred feet. Tires barking, papers and shit lying in my car was flying all over, it was a miracle that I didn’t roll the car, and that I didn’t catch incoming traffic. You could see my heart pounding thru my shirt. No trouble staying awake the rest of the way.

Defense: Half a dozen Ozzie, Brooks Robinson, and Frank plays come to mind, not to mention classics like May’s catch, Bo’s nailing Reynolds, and how about Dewey Evans with a sweet grab in RF during Game 6 of the ‘75 series. Jeter’s flip for the phantom out against Giambi IS NOT on the list.

Def Stat: I don’t know.

Mem Day: Yard work, relaxing, bike ride with the fam, some light duty drinking, dicking around withe some new/Vintage stereo equipment…..perfection for an old man like me.

1. The closest brush with death I’ve had was I was out shooting skeet one weekend, and I was bent over doing something, and my buddy swung over the top of me to shoot, I don’t actually know how close it was, but I could feel the shotgun blast reverb through my skull.

2. I love the desperation play that somehow works, like the defender falling down and just throwing the ball with his glove out of desperation.

3. I used to put about 90% faith into them, but now im down to around 75% faith, but I can’t really tell you why

4. I might BBQ… All by myself… Oh and volunteer some time in Joplin.

1. What is your closest brush with death or at least serious bodily injury?
I contracted chicken pox in my mid-twenties. It turns out, the older you are when you get it, the worse it is. I ran a triple-digit fever for a week, and was apparently delirious for a day or two. I don’t suppose my life was actually in danger, but I’m told the fever threatened serious cerebral injury for quite a while. I’m fine now, though. Honest.

2. What is your favorite defensive baseball highlight?
If a person just says “the catch,” what are they referring to? I think 90% of the time, you’re talking about Mays, right? That one makes my list for sure. I would also mention Masato Akamatsu’s “spiderman catch” for the Carp last year (or maybe the year before). I’m sure it’s still available on youtube if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

3. How much do you trust modern defensive statistics?
I trust them to say what they say. The hardest thing with most new stats is deciding exactly what it is that they are telling you. How much do I trust them? Probably about 4.275.

4. What are your Memorial Weekend plans?
I’ll be in Southern MO for a nephew’s birthday party, and may be dropping by Joplin for the volunteer project I mentioned in respose to Retro’s first comment.

Are we conflating all wars with defense? Politics is usually off limits, no?

People grill on memorial day because it’s nice outside. They don’t do so in honor of a government that uses theft to fund offensive wars in our name, thereby also killing, maiming, and ruining the very people we pretend to hold dear as our “defenders”. If we cared so much, we wouldn’t do all that to them.

/sorry for political rant. It just grates on me to see endless State glorification.

1. Nearly ran my car straight into a lightpole when trying to get out of the way of an ambulance and hitting an ice patch. Have since wondered if the ambulance would’ve stopped or continued to the scene of their call.

2. Probably Jim Edmonds’ diving catch in CF. Was shocking at the time.

3. As much as any other statistic. It’s to be used in concert with any other piece of information available.

4. I’ll be grilling in honor of the sun being up, and enough money being in my pocket to make it enjoyable. lol

Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend – my office is absolutely dead, and has been pretty much since about noon.

1. What is your closest brush with death or at least serious bodily injury? This could be one of two I suppose…(and I guess we come close to death with fender benders on the highway and commuting on the highway, but I’ll skip over those since they’re boring)…1. idiotically drove directly into a tornado-producing supercell with some friends back in college, at night. It poured so much you couldn’t see anything whatsoever, including headlights passing you. Anyway, we came to find out that what we did A) is known in the field as “core-punching”, and is known to be a lethal practice, B) brought us within 500m of an F3 tornado on the ground, and 2. got bitten by a copperhead. turns out they’re not all that dangerous, but I was in ICU for 3 days. Now I see them all-the-time in the mid-late summer where I live. Somewhat terrifying. They hang out in the yard and right on the sidewalk—-I’ve come this close to stepping on one.

2. What is your favorite defensive baseball highlight? Hmm……I dunno. Anything that reflects positively on the Kansas City Royals baseball club.

3. How much do you trust modern defensive statistics? About as far as I can understand them.

4. What are your Memorial Weekend plans? Meeting a bunch of friends and family for tailgating at The K!

2. Alex Gordon. He took a super high chopper about 10 feet behind third in foul territory and then nonchalantly launched it across the diamond off the back of his feet. I thought that this would be one of those where the throw gets there as the runner is about 10 feet passed first, but no…out. Still amazes me why he would ever leave 3B. This has got to be, by far, the most underrated play I have witnessed. Matter of fact, I am the only one that ever brings this play up. I would like to find it somewhere.

3. I don’t understand them, but I trust them to a point. I don’t think guys like Escobar and Rey Ordonez are given their due though. Those guys take away hits, and I don’t think there is a measure for that.

4. Chillin with the fam. Might go to an auction Monday. Auctions- underrated.