This guy works for the Mariners
If you have a subscription, run over and check out this Baseball Prospectus interview with Tony Blengino. Loooooot of great stuff. If you’re looking for interesting stuff to talk about at our event next week, this is a gold mine.
News on what they’re doing building a stat analysis organization (Tom Tango’s consulting!)
Here’s my favorite quote
But we want independent opinions, and we want people in our office to disagree. We want some degree of conflict. If everyone agrees, and says the same thing about each transaction, you have too homogenous of a group together. You need to have people coming at issues from different angles, and I think that we’re in the process, in the short time we’ve been together, of having that.
This one is just as good, though:
DL: Among established defensive metrics, which do you feel are most meaningful?
TB: I like the Hardball Times revised zone ratings [RZR] and out of zone plays [OOZ]. I think you can take their statistics and couch them a certain way, and get some really good indicators. There are a lot of other ones out there as well, like the Plus/Minus and the UZR, and I think they all have value. I think it all comes down to being able to come up with a measure where you have a baseline that you’re comparing to, and I think that with the Hardball Times metrics you can come up with a baseline fairly easily and know what you’re talking about, whether a guy is above or below average at a certain position, and watch trends over the years fairly easily. So I think that there is value in a lot of the different metrics, and I think they’re being advanced on an annual basis. It comes down to the user and what he’s most comfortable working with, and that he has a logical premise that his analysis is based on.
It’s a great in-depth interview, where you really get a sense of the team’s direction. It’s also a really good example of how asking quality questions can get good answers.
Also, he talks about how defense is undervalued right now, how… look, there’s like forty pages of goodness here, and it was unthinkable someone like this would be in the organization a year ago.
A week from now, he’ll be answering your questions at the USSM/LL event. You’re going to want to be there.
The 2008 USSM Music Post
Hopefully nothing happens today. In one of our long-standing traditions, during the off-season we take a break from our usual steady diet of self-importance, banning people who don’t agree with us, and conspiring with the Council on Foreign Relations to run the world to throw out random non-Mariners posts and, when the whim strikes us, the USSM Endorsements.
Here’s our traditional music post. Here’s the process of the annual list: I draft something with my top impressions. Then I go into iTunes and check the play count for 2008 albums. Did I really listen to those all that much? Were there early-year CDs unfairly being discounted?
And this year I only share one with John Richards’ list! Yeah, take that, Jim Thomsen and your accusations of KEXP worship!
Marnie Stern, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That
No Age, Nouns
Hold Steady, Stay Positive
Beastie Boys, the Mix Up
Frightened Rabbit, Midnight Organ Fight
Sigur Ros, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
Breeders, Mountain Battles
Raveonettes, Lust Lust Lust
This Will Destroy You, This Will Destroy You
The Notwist, The Devil, You + Me
Black Keys, Attack and Release
Much, much more discussion follows.
Marnie Stern, This Is It and I Am It and You Are It and So Is That and He Is It and She Is It and It Is It and That Is That
I love this CD so much, and yet I’m almost at a loss as to why. I wrote it up on Hate Life, Will Travel. It’s so good, far beyond any reasonable expectation. I find myself listening to it catching the bus in the morning, and then later in the day find myself humming one of the songs. Marnie rocks out. And the songs are bouncy and dark and peppy and ponderous, and she shreds the guitar, and I love it. I’m strapped for cash but you could tell me she was playing a show tomorrow and I’d sell the monitor I’m writing this on to go there. So, so tasty.
No Age, Nouns
Rock out. These guys are great. I have a huge soft spot in my heart for small, simple bands that do something interesting. And Sub Pop. It’s a second-listen record, in that the first time you hear it you may well be put off by the lo-fi sound. I did. And I didn’t come back to it for a while. When I did, though, I thought “holy crap, this is great” because it was.
Hold Steady, Stay Positive
Lot of rock on this list. This is a great album. I practically wore the electrons through on this one.
Beastie Boys, the Mix Up
A whole different thing. I put this on at every event I hosted this year after it came out, and the reaction each time was the same: I’d see people start to bob their heads, and then they’d start smiling, and smiling widely. It’s like The In Sound From Way Out in a way, and back when I worked somewhere I could put music on in the store, I played that one every day I was on the counter until one of my co-workers scratched it into coaster land.
It’s so good to listen to, though, and again, as party music — it’ll make people happy and everyone will catch the beat.
Frightened Rabbit, Midnight Organ Fight
Occupying the mind-space The National held last year. That’ll make sense to some of you. Those crazy Scots.
Sigur Ros, Med Sud I Eyrum Vid Spilum Endalaust
I’m such a hipster. Yes! I listen to a crazy soaring Icelandic band that sings nonsense lyrics. There!
That said, this is probably as accessible as Sigur Ros gets.
Breeders, Mountain Battles
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’re gooooooooooooooooooooooonna rise.
I listened to this the second time as a kind of charity hat-tip to Kim Deal, and I liked it enough to listen to it again, and again…
Raveonettes, Lust Lust Lust
It’s almost Lush-esque shoegaze, in its way, except not.
This Will Destroy You, This Will Destroy You
I didn’t like the new Mogwai album, but fortunately I got this too, and my “huge epic super-complicated post-rock rock” of the year.
The Notwist, The Devil, You + Me
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Quality.
Black Keys, Attack and Release
Two guys, a guitar, and a drum, and the result is compelling, intimate music.
Also: what a year for Sub Pop. Holy crap. No Age, Fleet Foxes, the Flight of the Conchords album, Grand Archives, The Helio Sequence… if Sub Pop had a subscription option where they just sent me the new releases as they rolled off the CD press, I would probably have to sign up.
There’s a whole massive batch of bands (Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, etc) that put out personal, quiet albums I’m just catching up on. TV on the Radio has a CD I’ve only listened to twice. It’s supposed to be stunning, but I haven’t gotten there yet.
What else? I liked the new UNKLE, and that attracted almost no notice. Does the Transmissionary Six CD count? Q-Tip’s new one is good, and.. I just went into iTunes and counted the 2008-year albums and I have over a hundred. Yeah. 4.2 days of continuous music. eMusic: blessing and curse.
Conor’s half-assed list
Ok, well this won’t be nearly as exciting as Derek’s because I sucked at new music this year. When I put together my preliminary list, most of the albums actually came out in 2007. Unfortunately, music was one of the things trimmed down for me as an unpaid intern…partly because I don’t have as much money and because I’m away from my friends and don’t get as many recommendations. This is just a long way of confessing that I only have a top 5 this year. But I did just subscribe to eMusic last month and got a bunch of iTunes gift cards for Christmas, so next year looks promising!
Los Campesinos!, We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed
Fleet Foxes, s/t
Dillinger Four, Civil War
Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, s/t
Atmosphere, When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold
Obviously there was a TON of stuff that I wanted to hear this year but just didn’t, so most of my iTunes gift cards will be used to catch up on 2008 stuff. Next year I’m really looking forward to new albums by Green Day, New Found Glory (on Epitaph!), NOFX, and Two Tongues (Saves The Day + Say Anything!)
He’s rested, he’s ready…
Left-handed power, bargain price, willing to accept a one-year deal, West Coast… Barry Bonds underwent hip surgery to ensure he’s ready for the 2009 season!
What?
Read more
Jan 10 Feed Update: one week left and seats are going fast
(whew!)
I believe I’m caught up on payments. If you wanted to arrange to avoid PayPal and emailed us, you should have heard from me. If you heard from Dave and not me (specifically, the “you’re on the alternate payment list” email) drop me a line. I don’t want anyone to be left off.
That becomes important because in a couple of days since announcing the details we’re just shy of half full. In fact I will bet that when I process the next batch tomorrow afternoon we’ll get to two-thirds. Dave’s been skeptical about whether we can fill a room this size, but I have faith.
This is going to be a barn-burner. I’m so excited.
Dave’s promotional post follows
—
We told you hold the date – now we tell you why. On Saturday, January 10th, we’re hosting the latest USSM/LL event. The guests for the afternoon are Mariners Asst. GM Tony Blengino and Mariners scouting director Tom McNamara. These are the two guys that Zduriencik brought over from Milwaukee – Blengino is the guy behind the Department of Baseball Research that is being established and the one pushing the organization into the 21st century of baseball analysis. McNamara is the top scout in the organization, and will be running the amateur draft this summer. They’re both going to be a lot of fun to talk to.
The event is at the downtown Seattle Central Library from 1:30 to 5:30 on Saturday, January 10th. We won’t be providing food, so we’ve lowered the price to $10, which just goes to defray the costs of the room rental. We’re trying to improve the whole registration/payment process for these things, so if you want to attend, click on the button below and donate $10.
Do not click the anonymous button, as we need your name to show up on the list of donaters -that will be the list we use at the door to let people in. If you’re paying for multiple people, send an email to the USSM account with the names of the people you’re bringing so that we can make sure everyone is on the list. And if you’re totally anti-paypal, send us an email too and we’ll work something out.
But, yea, January 10th, four hours of baseball talk with Derek, the LL gang, and two of the big wigs in the M’s new front office. It’s going to be a lot of fun, so I encourage you guys to go.
Brian Fuentes signs with the Angels
Two year deal, replaces Rodriguez as closer, causing me to roll my eyes about bullpen roles.
Fun fact: Fuentes, former Mariner, went to the Rockies in Cirillo trade and became the only really successful member of that deal (he went along with Jose Paniagua and Denny Stark‘s toxic contract).
Further fun story: Fuentes was one of the biggest surprises and misses in my baseball writing career. I didn’t think Fuentes was going to ever put it together, and was thinking about leaving him out of that year’s Baseball Prospectus. He’d been in the system for five years, and looked to me like maybe he’d be back-end bullpen material at best, and I had a lot of more important players to cover. Talking to Tacoma Rainiers broadcaster Mike Curto in researching the Baseball Prospectus chapter, he said “I don’t know about that, he’s got that slider, he could be a lefty specialist right now.”
Then Keith Law gave me a stern talking-to on the authors list about leaving him out.
Fuentes has turned that motion and that slider into a nice little career and gone to the All-Star game three times.
On the other hand, as Ivan likes to remind me, I once thought Brian Raabe was the future of the M’s infield, so I’ve got that going for me too.
Jan 10 event update
I’m working through the invites and trying to resolve the guest list today. This thing’s filling up pretty fast. Jeez.
Okay, so quick notes from today’s work:
– If you don’t want to pay through Paypal for whatever reason (including “want to cause Derek pain”) email us and we’ll work something out. Yes, Paypal is evil and horrible, and they’ve screwed us too, but it makes this thing 100x easier.
– If you’re bringing a guest, email us with the name you donated under and your guest’s name.
– If you paid through PayPal via check, you don’t show up on the list until the check’s cleared. This takes a while. Please do not email us about this. We can’t make checks clear faster.
– If you paid and your donation doesn’t show up instantaneously, please do not email us about this. Give it some time.
– If something went horribly wrong, email us.
Dave’s promotional post follows
—
We told you hold the date – now we tell you why. On Saturday, January 10th, we’re hosting the latest USSM/LL event. The guests for the afternoon are Mariners Asst. GM Tony Blengino and Mariners scouting director Tom McNamara. These are the two guys that Zduriencik brought over from Milwaukee – Blengino is the guy behind the Department of Baseball Research that is being established and the one pushing the organization into the 21st century of baseball analysis. McNamara is the top scout in the organization, and will be running the amateur draft this summer. They’re both going to be a lot of fun to talk to.
The event is at the downtown Seattle Central Library from 1:30 to 5:30 on Saturday, January 10th. We won’t be providing food, so we’ve lowered the price to $10, which just goes to defray the costs of the room rental. We’re trying to improve the whole registration/payment process for these things, so if you want to attend, click on the button below and donate $10.
Do not click the anonymous button, as we need your name to show up on the list of donaters -that will be the list we use at the door to let people in. If you’re paying for multiple people, send an email to the USSM account with the names of the people you’re bringing so that we can make sure everyone is on the list. And if you’re totally anti-paypal, send us an email too and we’ll work something out.
But, yea, January 10th, four hours of baseball talk with Derek, the LL gang, and two of the big wigs in the M’s new front office. It’s going to be a lot of fun, so I encourage you guys to go.
Why I’m enthusiastic about the MLB Network
I’m a little excited, and not for the reasons MLB’s pushing.
MLB has an amazing opportunity here.
First, in showing off great moments in baseball to demonstrate why it’s a great game. ESPN Classic hasn’t cut it.
Second, in drawing in new people in other ways and converting them to dedicated fans of the game. I’d love to see shows with different managers talking about strategies, and you could do some amazing things walking through big decisions in their careers. I’m not a Tony LaRussa fan, but I’d love to spend an hour hearing him talk about how his bullpen management philosophy came about, and where he thinks it’s won games and where it’s failed him. Earl Weaver’s still alive — put that guy in front of a camera and start showing him game footage. I’ll bet it’d be must-watch television.
Third, in bringing great games people don’t normally see nationally to everyone. The temptation to build ratings by broadcasting every Yankee-Red Sox game that ESPN and Fox don’t pick up is probably going to be too much. But there’s still be game on game every day they could eventually be showing: great pitching matchups, milestones threatened, rivalry games, interesting debuts, especially by pitchers… if you’ve ever had the Extra Innings package and are anywhere near as baseball-obsessed as I am, you’ve seen this — every day, there are games that are interesting and worth watching, and for MLB, it’s worth showing people that and talking about the why.
Fourth, in giving us a winter fix.
A long time ago, I had a random, half-formed idea about doing a baseball channel and broadcasting essentially second-tier games for the crazed fan (at the time, to tie this into the M’s, my particular pitch was being able to watch Nick Johnson, who I’ve always been a huge, huge fan of, and who I know really hope the M’s pick up). And then in winter, you air the AFL games, Venezuela games, international competitions, whatever you can buy a feed to or put a camera on. Kids in Hawaii on a backlot, it doesn’t matter. Get people their fix through the winter. And then, of course, analysis… so I called someone I’m not sure wants to be named here but who is amazingly smart and savvy about this stuff and he started to laugh when I was a couple sentences into it.
“We can’t do it,” he said. “I tried this a while ago. Guess how much (domestic minor league) wanted for television rights.”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “They’re don’t have distribution now, I’d guess $foo and then an ad split.”
He named a figure that curls my hair to think of now. It was field-a-major-league-team high.
“I couldn’t put together enough funding,” he said. And then we started to talk about rights and demographics, so I’ll stop the digression.
MLB has the money, the distribution, and can make this happen.
And most importantly it’s another step towards making MLB a more nationally-oriented game with shared revenue. MLB’s current territorial system structure massively and unfairly favors the New York teams and there’s nothing anyone can do about it until it’s reformed. I understand MLB’s been trying to reform this behind the scenes for years, and Selig for all his faults is amazing at putting together a consensus he can get passed. I’ll spare everyone an off-topic rant about baseball’s revenue inequities, though.
This helps — it provides an example of how baseball is extra-territorial in the same way MLB.com has. It helps to ease the disparity if it’s handled right. If in a few years every team’s making an extra $10m, $20m from the MLB Network revenues, that helps Kansas City a lot more than it does the Mets. It provides recognition that baseball fans in the Midwest play a vital part in baseball’s national success out of proportion to their cities’ population relative to New York. I’m hopeful it could help the push towards territorial reform and better revenue distribution.
I’ll offer one cautionary note, though — don’t expect serious analysis from MLB TV. Don’t get your hopes up at all. They have the opportunity to experiment, but looking over their earlier schedule they’re trying to reach out to a couple of audiences and if they’re even interested in the informed, SABR-friendly baseball fan, they think they’ll pick them up with more general-interest programming.
And on that same subject, don’t expect objective or interesting analysis either. I know there are examples (right now particularly, the NBA is letting some of this run) of company shops criticizing the product. It’s not going to happen here. We don’t need to look any farther than how MLB.com is run: their streaming product is now amazingly good, the game coverage is decent enough, and it’s a fine source of quotes, but if you read the disclaimer that
This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
without rolling your eyes or seeing the subtle distinction they’re making there, well, please send USSM a bar off the stash of leprechaun gold you and your unicorn steed will stumble across shortly.
MLB.com has no negative coverage. Not of teams, players, anything. The harshest thing you’ll see said about the worst player is that they’re having a challenging season, or they’re struggling. It’s boosterism, nearly nonstop, designed to promote the product in the same way the team’s broadcasts are commercials for the team and not news broadcasts.
If they do put together any content that’s openly critical of the product or any players, I’ll be surprised, but I’m sure they’re cynical enough to put together something that proves they’re objective and edgy, within what are sure to be well-defined boundaries. Even then, though, maybe that would prove popular and lead them to loosen up on content restrictions… I’m hopeful.
Don’t let any of that take away from the overall point, though: this could be a leap forward for baseball, worth checking out now as well as a sign of progress and yet things to come.
Don Larsen’s perfect game is on tonight, followed by an interview with Larsen and Yogi! I’d rather watch that than the Orange Bowl.