Quick thought on the Browns ...

Yes, that was an extremely satisfying win by the Browns over the Ravens yesterday. I was against McCown being reinserted as the starter after Manziel won his only start, but I will cheerfully admit I was wrong about that. He was phenomenal yesterday. He is now the only Browns quarterback in history with three consecutive 300-yard games, and yesterday he set a new club record for passing yards in a regular-season game. (Nobody seems to be mentioning that Bernie Kosar actually threw for 483 yards in that double-overtime win over the Jets in the 1986-87 playoffs. I wish I had a VHS tape of that game. And also a VHS.)

In any case, I haven't heard anybody mention this, but if the NFL hadn't introduced the two-point conversion as an option 21 years ago, the Ravens would probably have won yesterday. The Browns went one-for-two on two-pointers yesterday, so if they'd just kicked extra points, they'd still have finished with 30 points. The Ravens only attempted one two-point conversion, and failed. At the time, it certainly appeared to be the right play -- they were up five with 5:56 to play, and it made sense to try to make it a seven-point game instead of six. But the conversion failed. Had they just kicked an extra point and everything else had gone the way it did, the Ravens would have taken a 31-30 lead on that field goal with 25 seconds left.

And this, my friends, is why I love the two-point conversion so much.

I'm a bit tardy with this post, but ...

On Thursday, my good friend Jeff Brown treated me to a front-row seat at the Browns' preseason game against Buffalo. Well, a business acquaintance of his gave him his season tickets. So I guess technically, that guy treated both of us to the game. In any case, Jeff was kind enough to invite me along. I never realized regular people such as we could ever wind up in the front row, even for a preseason game, but of course, you always see people sitting there when you watch the games on TV, and whether those people are bajillionaires or not, they still have red blood just like you and me, and their pants-donning method is identical (or at least highly similar) to yours and mine.

In any case, I took this picture with my phone before the game:



That was taken from the actual seat I was actually sitting in for the actual game. Sure, it was just a preseason game, but still, that was pretty awesome. That blue thing in the lower left-hand corner of the photo is the instant replay machine. Had there been a replay review, it would have taken place directly in front of my seat. Sadly, there were none.

I used to work at The News-Herald in Willoughby, first as a member of the copy desk, and then as an assistant city editor. I left there in 2007, but the newsroom staff has changed very little in that time, and I spotted former colleague Michael Blair, the N-H photographer, on the sideline. I was so close to the field, I yelled out his name at a not-particularly high volume, and he immediately turned around and saw me, waved and snapped my picture, presumably to show his co-workers who he saw at the game.

Here's a selfie Jeff took:




The row behind us did eventually fill up, in case you're wondering. Those people were just a little late.

As for the game? Well, of course it's just preseason, but it seems to me Manziel played a little better than McCown, albeit against the second-string defense. But that's about the extent of my analysis at this time. I unfortunately don't really have enough time to go into any depth.

On Corey Kluber

Anybody who thinks Corey Kluber isn't the pitcher he was last year should have watched tonight's game against the Twins. The dude pitched a complete-game one-hitter on just 98 pitches, striking out seven. The one hit was a home run, so no shutout, but yeesh, that dude is really something. I would even go so far as to say I think he's the best Indians pitcher I've had the pleasure to watch. And he didn't even make the All-Star Game this year. Tut, tut.

In case you're wondering, the best Indians hitter I've seen in my 44 years on this planet was, without question, Manny Ramirez. No, he wasn't the best all-around player, but he was the best pure hitter.

But speaking of offense, the Tribe entered tonight's game having scored 461 runs in 114 games. That includes their recent offensive explosion, upon which I'm about to expand, but in any case, that's an average of 4.04 runs per game on the season. They've routinely had runners on base and been unable to score any of them; every Tribe fan knows all about that. But here's the Indians' runs scored over the last seven games: 9, 17, 8, 5, 2, 6, 6. That's an average of 7.57 runs per game. Obviously that 17-run outburst against the Twins a few days ago is an extreme aberration and skews that number upwards; nonetheless, the Indians have scored at least six runs in five of their last seven games.

That'll play, folks. That'll play.

And one other thing. There's a good deal of rambling in this post, and I've decided that's probably my new style. I hope you "enjoy" it.

(Putting "enjoy" in quotes is a reference to George Harrison and Monty Python. Google it if you don't believe me.)

ADDENDUM: My cursory Googling indicates Google doesn't help with that particular episode. Sorry to have misled you. But I'm not going to tell you the backstory, because I don't remember enough details even to fake it.

Indians' dominance?

As long as I'm posting to this blog, I might as well share with you an email exchange I just had with my friend Jeff Brown. (I'm pretty sure Jeff won't mind.) I emailed him this morning under the heading "Indians are actually the best team in the AL Central."

Me: Check this out:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/

According to this page, the Indians have actually played like the best team in the American League Central this year. They've just been deeply unfortunate. According to what the nice folks at Baseball Prospectus call "3rd Order Winning Percentage," no team in the division has had better underlying statistics than our Tribe. Bad luck has shortchanged them out of 11 wins this season (rounding off).

It's apparently some sort of proprietary formula, but this is how BP defines the stat:

3rd Order Winning Percentage: A team's projected winning percentage, based on underlying statistics and adjusted for quality of opponents.

Of course, none of this helps them in the standings. But still, I thought it was interesting.


Jeff:  This is fascinating stuff!

It looks like the Indians get the second-highest adjusted win total (10.6 more wins) in MLB... second only to the Oakland Billy Beane's with 11.7.

Oakland would be 63-52 if third order winning percentage was the law, instead of their actual record of 51-64.

I guess it kind of makes sense for the Tribe, which has gotten numerous stellar pitching performances but lost the game because they couldn't hit the damned ball!

On the other side of the coin, it appears that the Minnesota Twins are actually much worse than their record of 57-56 shows.  Their third order winning percentage would place them at 48-65 with their league-leading 9.4 adjustment downward.

Of course, this is just one way of looking at things and although very interesting, it doesn't meet the eye test because it indicates that the Indians ought to be 64-48 and the Royals ought to be three games back at 61-51, and everyone in the Milky Way Galaxy knows that the Royals are a better team this year than the Tribe.

What do you think?

Me: Oh, come on. There are lots of folks on Rigel 7 who have no idea how good the Royals are.

But seriously, are the Royals truly better? Based on end results, it would appear so, and that's really all that matters. But the fact that it seems obvious that the Royals are better, doesn't make it so. It used to be obvious to everyone that swinging too hard was a bad strategy, that you might hit a few balls out of the park but that would be more than offset by the number of fly balls that would find their way into outfielders' gloves. Then Babe Ruth came along. ... It used to be obvious to everyone that a walk was purely the pitcher's fault, that the hitter basically just got lucky. Then Bill James came along. ... It used to be obvious to everyone that we were all better off if black and white people were kept separate from each other. Then Martin Luther King Jr. came along. ... So what I'm saying is, if you think the Royals are better than the Indians, you're a racist.

Just kidding. The Royals may truly be a better overall team than the Indians, but this chart throws that belief into question, at least for me.

* * *

Jeff hasn't replied to that yet, and I'm assuming that's because he sees my point and agrees with me.

Incidentally, I have since researched the star Rigel, which it turns out is part of the Orion constellation, and there is no evidence it has any planets, much less inhabited ones. But Rigel 7 (or Rigel VII) has often been the setting of much alien-related fiction, as you can discover more information about here.

First post in four years

OK, so I haven't exactly been active on this forum, but I'm watching the Browns-Redskins preseason game, and I have one thought: I don't like this longer extra point business. What if you want to run a fake and go for two after all?

That's all for now. I may decide to start posting regularly again. I don't write for a living anymore, so maybe I ought to get back into this. Baby steps. And this is about the babiest step I can think of.