Cold Stove News
In ice cold Giants news, in case you missed it, the Giants sent someone way down on the totem pole to watch Suk-Min Yoon pitch at UC Irving. Suk-Min is a South Korean pitcher who I am begging the Giants to sign just so we can have fun with his name. But the Giants will not be signing Yoon– there are 5 other teams interested in him and his agent is Scott Boras. Sabean don’t play those 2 games separately much less together.
And that’s fine because after screwing around with his name I’m not that interested in him as a pitcher….
I don’t think we need another pitcher with Yusmeiro Petit waiting in the wings. Assuming Voggy continues on his long, deep slide I do think Petit will be an effective 4/5 next year. People like to naysay him because he came out of nowhere last season but Petit added not one but two new effective pitches to his arsenal: a curve and a change up. Both were devastating. And he’s always been a strike thrower, something that Lincecum could learn from. Maybe he’s taking steroids too, that would just increase my interest in him as our 4/5. Who knows, maybe Voggy’s spending his off season doing the same thing. š š š
Here’s a fun graph to look at as your morning unfolds. James, try not to shoot that load on your keyboard as you type your post. lqtm:
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Considering the park they play 81 games in there’s just no way SF should be that far worse than the curve. Petit did have a nice season, but I doubt he’s capable of lasting 30 starts. Vogs, nuff said. I just think these types of guys have a very limited amount of effective innings in a season–likely 100 tops.
As opposed to scraping the barrel with the Ironheads Sadowskis and Wellemeyers I’d sign Arroyo in a heartbeat. He immediately upgrades the rotation as a solid proven and durable vet regardless of what you get from Hudson and Lincecum, which might not be much. Let Petit work out of the pen and take over Kontos role, and be ready for a spot start when needed.
Every single one of the NL playoff teams last year were at the top of the pitching stats. The Nats were right behind and closest to making playoffs. Giants pitching has to be way better than 13th in the league in order for them to hang with LA, and if it is I think they can beat them head to head.
Good synopsis, WillieD…I pretty much agree with it all…especially the part about signing Arroyo, and the Giants needing to be vastly improve over last year’s pitching stats.
I admire the tenacity willie…in spite of everything you hear that they’re done looking at sp’s you keep bangin away everyday with they should go after another…
ah, maybe if no one picks one of the FAs up the demands trend downward toward something Sabes is more comfortable with…and it turns out Sabes has been sandbagging everyone all along.
The first thing I thought when I read this was that it was some serious spank bank material for james. No offense man. Here’s a tissue. š
Sure Suk-Min Yoo was one of the pilots on Asiana Flight along with Sum-Ti Wong.
That graph: one line is my sex life, the other my IRA.
probably POTD later, if you’d allow it.
sure, cuz I ain’t saying which is which
Well, the market IS going up. Sorry ’bout that . . .
Not much taken with bunching Hudson and Timmy. Their situations are not similar. Huddy’s injury last season was his ankle, not elbow, wrist, arm,shoulder. I think he’s gonna pitch just fine, maybe not quite up to his lifetime level, age being a consideration, but well more than adequately. When all is said and done, he will be no worse than an N.L. average #3 starter.
Lincecum? Hard to say, except that the Giants do not make a habit of throwing $35M after nostalgia and that the Giants know pitching. Whether SF has a good year (83-85 wins), a very good one (87-90) or an excellent one will depend largely on whether Timothy LeRoy reinvents himself as a successful starter, even with diminished velocity. He’s a smart dude and is well aware that others have made the transition and have thrived.
Vogie? Just plain don’t know. Aging and diminished skills? Probably. Determination and intent? No question. No extra-curricular distraction this spring and a long season of recovery have to be taken into consideration. A half-season of sub 4.00 ERA from Vogelsong and we could well be assessing Escobar’s contribution come August or so. That’s what i’m looking for outta our Bulldog ~ a bridge to the future.
well, if you look at the simplest of numbers, Hudson as been in decline for 3 straight years. ERA has risen .40 each season since 2010 banner year up to dang near 4.00 last year, and IPs has also dropped consecutively.
Lincecum, as we have painfully watched, has been mostly awful for last 2 years running, with occasional flashes of brilliance. It’s been a common practice of Sabes to overpay for his own, so what Lincecum makes I don’t think has much to do with value. Vogs neither.
Just my take, man…and I hope those PECOTA stats (4 SPs under 3.50 ERA) Twin posted are more in line with results 2014.
PECOTA is here- this is the projection system originally developed by Nate Silver . Take them for what you think they’re worth. Some of the content has to be paid for. I happened to have 5 bucks a month to spare so I used it for a subscription instead of eating on 20th of each month. So I’m sharing with you folks because I’m a wonderful man. Here are some of the Giants’ projections, I’ve only include some basic ones.
Posey .295 BA 20 HR 84 RBI .370 OBP .469 SLG 41.3 VORP
Pablo .288 BA 20 HR 78 RBI .345 OBP .469 SLG 31.9 VORP
Pence .270 BA 20 HR 78 RBI .328 OBP .440 SLG 23.6 VORP
Pagan .271 BA 9 HR 53 RBI .321 OBP .399 SLG 23.0 VORP
Belt .264 BA 14 HR 62 RBI .345 OBP .431 SLG 18.6 VORP
Morse .262 BA 20 HR 69 RBI .318 OBP .446 SLG 16.8 VORP
Scutaro .266 BA 4 HR 42 RBI .325 OBP .347 SLG 14.3 VORP
Crawford .240 BA 9 HR 50 RBI .301 OBP .354 SLG 12.5 VORP
Pitchers:
Cain 14-11 W/L 3.11 ERA 1.11 WHIP 29.9 VORP
MadBum 13-11 W/L 3.18 ERA 1.12 WHIP 26.5 VORP
Lincec*m 11-11 W/L 3.41 ERA 1.22 WHP 18.9 VORP
Hudson 12-12 W/L 3.43 ERA 1.20 WHIP 19.3 VORP
Vogelsong 6-8 W/L 4.38 ERA 1.36 WHIP minus 1.4 VORP
Romo 3-2 W/L 2.28 ERA 0.96 WHIP 30 SAVES 13.0 VORP
The only numbers on the Giants that seem out of whack are the pitcher’s WHIPS. They seem very low compared to their W/L records.
You should be able to view the entire speadsheet here:
https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=B444D1C21FB0C162&id=B444D1C21FB0C162%21105#cid=B444D1C21FB0C162&id=B444D1C21FB0C162%21105
Or if you have trouble with that, try this:
http://sdrv.ms/1br7liA
You’see the Pecota icon, just open it, You don’t need Office. It will be converted to a WEB based spreadsheet. Enjoy.
They lost me when I saw the numbers on Belt….
Those numbers assume he will only have 450 ABs because he will be benched in favor of Morse and Posey.
Actually, they’re not a lot different from the other projections on Belt. I hope they’re low, too.
Here’s the NL West projected standings. I’ve provided an explanation of the PECOTA method in a document, same link. I suspect that it will make eyes glaze over.
.
http://sdrv.ms/1br7liA
LA 98-64
Giants 87-75
SD 81-81
AZ 79-83
They figure 512 total PA for Belt, 7 more than Morse. Actually, it’s not out of the question that Belt and Morse eventually swap positions after they weigh whether Mike’s offense compensates for his defense in LF.
I don’t fucking see Belt going from 17 to 14. He had a horrible start last yr. His hr totals can only go UP from here barring injury.
Les, the numbers for Belt aren’t much different from the other projections. But they all have hits and misses. I’m a huge Belt fan, I hope the projections are low.
Hey Michael – have I ever told you that you are a wonderful man? Thanks for sharing.
And in San Francisco Giant news – The Giants announce the hiring of Todd Linden as the hitting instructor for the Low A Agusta Greenjackets. Zzzzzzz….thank goodness pitchers and catchers report in 10 days!
Great. Hopefully, he’ll be a better hitting instructor than he was as a hitter…
No shit!
Most hitting instructors were not good hitters.
They’d be better off with Hal Linden.
Just think of me on the 20th.
?
Read the first paragraph of my PECOTA post. Just a little joke Sorry. It’s hard to tell with all the comments in between but it was a reply to Chi’s 10:43
Chi:Thanks for acknowledging it. I thought it was interesting stuff, and it shows every player. Oh well.
I always appreciate the stuff you share, Twin…especially the stuff that you spend your hard-earned coin on (and forgo a meal for us).
One thing about Belt. He’s got the advantage of great defensive (JT) and offensive (the Thrill) first baseman teaching in spring training, and occasionally during the season. Both lefties, too, as teachers. If he doesn’t take advantage of that while with the Giants, it’s on him. If I were Patton, the Niners young WR, I’d sure take advantage of Jerry Rice, although he’s not apparently associated with the team officially like JT and Will are…
Didn’t work with “Bust” AJ Jenkins when Jerry asked him to run the hills in Redwood City, let’s see if Patton wants too put in the effort to be a decent receiver!
Dang Mays has been around for years and pffft….Belt either has what it takes or doesn’t. Coaching provides modest return in baseball.
Yeah, Snarkk, the 49ers need WRs like the Giants need OFers.
The one thing keeping the Niners in check is a legit speed WR that can get deep (and CATCH). Although the coaches don;t call enough deep balls anyway.
Bring back Boldin for next year and they’ll be fine at WR. I think the Niner’s top need is a lock-down corner.
If you want to see the Giants BP numbers in isolation, click on the team abbreviation for one of the players in TF’s spreadsheet (thx for posting!). BP predicts an 87 win season with 655 runs scored, pretty much the status quo on offense. It doesn’t list the runs allowed total, but to get to 87 wins, it would have to be roughly in line with what the Pirates and Dodger staffs did last year.
*Now* I need that tissue.
Ha, just saw that they actually have the team runs figures at the top of the page (missed that). The runs scored numbers are higher than the manual tally I did — forgot the pitchers, whose offensive numbers are not listed!
677 runs scored
623 allowed
Better than having min yoon suked, even when I do have to correct myself.
If I’m Belt, and his agent, I’m loving this news. The arbitration avoidance price just went up…
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1948004-freddie-freeman-and-atlanta-braves-reportedly-will-agree-to-long-term-contract
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/10403089/freddie-freeman-atlanta-braves-agree-contract-extension
135 million for Freeman? WHAT….THE….FUCK? That’s a joke.
Fantasy guys–didn’t Pawlie trade Kershaw for Freeman? Am I remembering that right? Hey Pawlie, looks like the Braves are on your side with that deal
And Snarkk, I agree with you. If Belt’s representation can use comps of other players to support their case (and not just the stats he put up last year) then Belt is going to get much closer to his number than he probably would have otherwise.
Yep, several defensive and offensive categories have Belt not far above or below Freeman. Belt should be diggin’ this news…
I think it wasn’t Freeman. Maybe it was. Maybe it was Kershaw for Hal Linden. What do I know? I was under duress. Or under a dress. Whatever.
Freeman scares the fuck out of me. I would trade Belt AND Panda for him.
Pawlie – hoping you were under a dress and not under duress.
Here’s some more PECOTA numbers I was able to find:
http://tinyurl.com/bbxhg3y
had he played in the 60’s, your wheelhouse, I would have assigned this double platinum gold. Still, gold. Baby.
Loo: As I’m sure you knew, PECOTA was named after that very same man you linked to.
well, I didn’t know that. But I don’t look at PECOTA numbers so there’s no reason I should have known that. I thought it was an acronym for something. I don’t care about predictions from others (unless I use the numbers they use to come up with their predictions), I make my own.
Some people enjoy checking out the various projections. I’m one of them. But I also do my own. I’m glad to see that you do. A lot of folks just bitch about them. I’ll do some quickies right now.Just starting LU, no VORP, just off the top of my head
Posey .295 BA 24 HR 90 RBI .375 OBP .468 SLG
Pablo .298 BA 20 HR 80 RBI .352 OBP .459 SLG
Pence .280 BA 22 HR 88 RBI .333 OBP .490 SLG
Pagan .271 BA 10 HR 49 RBI .331 OBP .428 SLG
Belt .284 BA 19 HR 72 RBI .365 OBP .441 SLG
Morse .262 BA 18 HR 67 RBI .313 OBP .466 SLG
Scutaro .276 BA 4 HR 39 RBI .334 OBP .337 SLG
Crawford .244 BA 11 HR 52 RBI .318 OBP .384 SLG
I didn’t know that, Twin. I also figured it was an acronym.
You love 22/88. Cepeda actually did that once…
I like to see Twin come off his 35HR predictions from the past for Pablo.Otherwise, this all looks completely plausible and totally normal.
It is an acronym, or rather a “Backronym”.”Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm” is an acronym that is made by deciding on the letters to create a word, and then creating a name or title to fit the acronym.Thay’s how (Bill) Pecota came to be “Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm”.
so we’re all correct. Nice.
So everybody is right. Silver used the letters from Bill’s last name to create the acronym or Backronym, if you will.
“You love 22/88. Cepeda actually did that onceā¦” Actually 22-88 was the PECOTA projection for my career won/lost numbers.
So, take a look at what they’re paying Freeman. And, guys are telling me Panda, if he produces this season, is NOT worth $100M? You can bet Panda put down his fork to take a look at this Freeman news. Panda’s price just went up…
Dare I say that baseball is too awash in money, or anticipated tidal waves of it? I never for a second begrudge whatever any player can get in the market, but we are embarking on the Era of Astronomical Disproportionate Salaries (EOADS). (Unca_chuck and Chi and other artisanal organic wordsmiths: do we embark on? into? upon? into? A little help.)
Greater euphony and diminished pretension is achieved with “on” when the present participle is used, IMHO.
Into the era??? WTF…I haven’t finished my coffee and I have to jet out for a chiropractic appointment.
ONLY nine days until pitchers and catchers report! WHOOT!
totally agree. I wouldn’t pay him what he’s going to get, but I totally agree with you.
One of the things I really like about the Warriors. Lee: No tats. Curry: no tats. Klay: no tats. Bogut: no tats. Iguadola: …well, they aren’t that bad.
What other NBA starting 5 can boast almost no arm tats?
No tatts, no win. The dubs are getting smoked by Bobcats? Again?
Goodnight guys. I hope you’ve noticed that I’m trying to be the man that my Mom always hoped I’d be- a wise ass know-it-all.
Mom isn’t like most Moms.
She did a hell of a job, Mike, As most moms do.
I hope that’s a joke.
Bronson Arroyo is projected to have 1.9 WHIP pitching in Cincy. With him the rotation instead of Vogey, we’d give up about 20 fewer runs, adding another couple of victories to the Giants 2014 total, meaning they’d be one of the wild cards, ensuring yet another WS win.
What’s the catch?
None, really, Arroyo would be a better bet to help the Giants get to the playoffs as part of the rotation, as BF and WillieD have already opined. Just setting it in the context of the PECOTA projections. The jokiness is really just a nod to the tenuousness of any baseball prediction, even one based on a methodology that over time will give better results than mere guessing.
It still pisses me off that the Giants/Sabes can point to this uncertainty and consciously fail to hedge their bets more than they do.
I just don’t know where you’re seeing his WHIP projection.
It’s in the spreadsheet you linked to above. I posted 1.9, but it’s 1.19 :-). Go to the pitchers tab at the bottom, select find and search on Arroyo. The first hit is him as a comp, the second is his actual projected stats line.
Well, that answers my question. 1.90 WHIP had me flummoxed.
Some more Pecota numbers: http://tinyurl.com/lolo9mj
Interesting, Mac. Looks like Kevin Bass couldn’t steal a base on this guy for nothing. I wonder why he kept trying so many times.
that’s pretty funny, *walmart fishing league rankings*.
Kevin Bass, who I saw at the Stick when he was on Astros, was a local guy out of East PA, aka by a guy I used to work with in the 80s who lived there as *Dodge City*.
I like Pablo but I wouldn’t pay him big bucks on a long term deal. It’s plain stupid. . Anyway fans in SF will come out to see the view and get the expensive food, beer, garlic fries, etc. The Giants are soaking the fans and they’re loving it. More of the same should bring in more big bucks.
I kinda hope the warriors don’t abandon Oaktown. I feel bad for the fans that have been there supporting them to have to go somewhere else now that they are competitive. Playoff games there last year were really cool, and the place was rocking.
On the other hand, I don’t feel the same way about Niners moving out of Stick into new Santa Clara stadium. As Nip says about ATT it will be expensive to see a game and Friscans will have a commute, but also a far cry from the dump Niners and fans have had to endure for so long.
And there was never any way a new stadium was gonna happen in SF once Eddie D was out of the picture. It will be interesting to see how Dubs and Giants (who have big plans for current parking lot land) ownerships deal with the roadblocks being thrown in the way of future waterfront development by powerful and organized locals.
The land on which the Giants plan to build their “Mission Rock” complex is owned by the Port Authority. If the Port board votes to allow the development (and I believe they will based on everything I have read), then the “powerful and organized locals” are going to have a hell of a time trying to stop it. The Giants already have their first big tenant lined up in Achor Brewing that plans to build a new brewery, restaurant and museum there (targeted to open in 2016).
I think the Warriors have a tougher road ahead. And I appreciate the way Oakland has supported the Dubs, but if they can build a state of the art waterfront arena in the City…I am all good with it.
I’m all for the Dubs moving wherever they want to move. The fans will go to the new place. Lakob bought a floundering franchise, and has it turning around, so he’s due to change it how he wants. That’s how it works. The Giants built their own palace, moved, and are reaping the rewards. Why not the Dubs? The Oakland Coliseum complex is surrounded by nothing but an industrial wasteland that nobody wants to be caught dead in outside the stadia, located in a town with stoopid politicians no better than the SF politicos. I used to live there years ago, it hasn’t changed for the better, it’s worse. If I owned a team there, I’d look to get out, too. Lakob figures he can make a killing owning an arena venue used 200X a year in SF, and he’s probably right. Not to mention what other development he might participate in that comes with it. SF can use an arena for sure — the Cow Palace is a joke, and Moscone Center is limited in what it can be used for…
Don’t forget Slick Willie’s efforts to grease the wheels to keep the Niners in SF. The Niners were beloved moreso than the Giants at the time, and they finally got the necessary votes due to Slick Willie’s connections. Their whole stadium/Mall idea was a pipedream at best, but it would have happened (for good or ill) had Eddie D not gotten busted trying to buy a liquor license under the proverbial table. Mainly because Dr. Kedorkian decided to let the bond expire.
I get the idea of trying to gentrify Hunters Point/Bayview, but that would have displaced a shitload of people and caused a shitload pf problems. And it still would have been the problem that is the Masoleum/Arena complex. You don’t want to be anywhere near that shit once the game is over.
And, the crumbling pier area that Lakob wants to replace with the new arena is such a wonderful place. Generates lots of tax dollars, jobs, toxics, etc. Red’s Java House is great, I’ll admit, plus it generates tons of economic activity…
It’s close enough to the ballpark though to be included in the upsweep. There was never much hope for Hunter’s Point. Shit, they can move Red’s up 3 piers.
Here’s the full conspiracy video of the NFC Championship game. Some of these actually make sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEp4r2q9tTA
If by “these actually make sense” you mean sour grapes then yeah.
And the Dubs are ponying up the coin to fix that crumbling pier. One of the major hitches right now is over the height of the arena. My guess is that it will get built. And I agree on Red’s…love that place.
Replay any NFL game this season and you’ll see a conspiracy of bad calls. Who gave up 3 turnovers in the 4th quarter? Hint, it wasn’t the refs…
The first plan I saw online about the SF Arena was that Red’s was going to get space inside it on the ground floor, it’d still be there, open every day. Of course, without the “ambiance” of the old place…
I said ‘some’ dirt. The worst being the roughing the kicker. You hit the plant leg, it’s a 15 yard penalty. There’s no interpretation of that. He was not blocked into Lee.
The other one, as noited, was the close to a minute that the Seahawks got to decide to go for it on 4th and 7 rather than kick the FG. No timeout, no delay, yet they had a minute to decide. Later in the game, Kaepernick was dinged for a delay of game after 38 seconds (of the 45 second play clock) were run off.
The calls on Whitner and Rogers were complete bullshit. But there were enough shitty ccalls to go around. Still and all, the refs didn’t help.
Some old timey baseball history for anyone that is interested.
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2014/02/william_edward_white_baseball_s_first_black_player_lived_his_life_as_a_white.html
When Cold Bay Alaska has a temp seventeen degrees warmer than Petaluma, Ca. you know things have gone strange. When individual baseball salaries sometimes outrank the GDP’s of several small countries, you know things have gone strange. Bring on the garlic fries.
There’s no climate change. Humans can continue to dump billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year until we soon exceed levels never experienced on earth before in its entire existence — what difference should that make? Global warming is nothing but a socialist conspiracy to stop us from exercising our God-given right to burn hydrocarbons as fast as we can…
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
But it was cold this morning.
That was a bombshell from Hawking, though. It seems that Belt had no swing hole.
But there will continue to be a black hole into which 150 Belt PAs disappear every year.
Thanks for the video, Charlie. Fucking Niners should have won that game. I cannot wait for next year’s match-ups with the fucking SeaChicks.
By next year they hope to perfect the fade route and try it again with the game on the line. The progression means they try it from the 30 next year.
At the Oakland Coliseum, the Raiduhs most rabid, dressed-up, knuckleheaded fans are to be located in the area known as the “Event Horizon”…
One thing I do find amusing about football is the “measurement”. The line judge can spot the ball basically anywhere he wants within about a yard and a half swath of space where the ball carrier fell (now subject to a possible red flag review — great, a guy 100 yards away now tells the umpire where to place the ball within a yard of where HE thinks it should be), yet the chain gang comes out after the ball is placed to take the “measurement” — deciding by possibly half an inch (nose of the football) whether there is a first down. It’s pretty comical…
You wonder how 5 guys standing right there give Lynch an extra yard, and no one bats an eye. Problem is, you challenge it and you usually don’t get a spot change anyway.
If anyone here does want to reach me by Email, I’m changing my Internet provider today, so use twinfan1@hotmail.com.
I’ve reconciled to the fact that officiating is as good as it’s going to get, in any sport, which ain’t that great. So, replay is a great way to correct some of the inevitable official’s/ref’s/umpire’s mistakes.
What makes baseball umps so galling sometimes is that they make their mistakes with “attitude” added on. Well, that’s going to be changing somewhat. Replay is going to chip away at the pompous, prickly ump attitude.
The fallacy of baseball umpires being right so much of the time is that in almost all cases of calling safe or out, any idiot could make the calls — they aren’t close. Hence the specious arguments of “well, the umps get the calls right 99% of the time”, or similar. Pence puts away a can o’ corn pop fly into RF, he’s OUT! Wow, that was tough. Belt goes into the first row and catches the ball — OUT! — how hard is that? It’s not. It’s the close calls, the rare tough calls where the human factor obviously comes into play. We are going to finally see how many times the rare CLOSE calls are missed at first base, down the lines, and others. ESPN already did a small study on close calls a few years ago — really eye opening as to the evidence of human frailty, but not surprising IMO. Someone can correct me, I think the study concluded the umps missed something like 20% of the close calls studied — a really substantial failure rate…
Here it is. Yep, 20% close calls wrong…
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/otl/news/story?id=5464015
There are a lot of reasons I don’t think NFL games are fixed, and one of them is I don’t see the incentive for the NFL to take such a huge risk. It’s been the most popular sport in the U.S. for decades. Why take a chance on a major disruption and loss of belief in the sport if the secret leaked out, which it seems it inevitably would?
A lot of refs suck, and that’s just the way it is.
Why would Seattle be the chosen “fixed” winner for the NFL, over the Niners coming from a much larger fanbase? As for the NBA, now if you want to start talking about fixes…
Yeah, what was that NBA ref guy’s name? Donough? He fixed some games back in 2002-03. I mainly affected the Kings I think?
Yeah. NFL refs are part-timers, and they are getting consistently worse. Throw in all the subjective calls they have to make and you get way too many inconsistencies. The video is a joke, but it did point out some terrible calls.
Thing is, Carolina fans have a fairly strong case that THEY were jobbed in their game agasint the Niners.
One of Stern’s great successes in his “Commissionership”, he managed to completely put the Donaghy fixing thing under the rug. It just went away, though Donaghy made noise about not being the only ref involved in shading calls, not alone by a long shot. That stuff just got shut DOWN, and ESPN buried it…
Right, Snarkk. I was surprised how little hooraw that generated outside of Sacramento. Mainly because Donaghy reffed a lot of Kings games. I can’t remember if he was involved in the Kings/Lakers playoffs where the Lakers benefitted from about 15 calls in the game that Robert Horry won at the buzzer.
I think that Donaghy said that he and the other refs frequently had it out for certain players, and surprise, would call them for phantom calls, or not give them calls. Not necessarily just Sac at all. That, in itself, is bogus and calls into question tons of games he officiated. Separately, he got in deep with betting, and some wiseguys got their hooks into him, so he called games to help the fix. Whether other refs were in on the fixes, that’s anybody’s guess. We’ll probably never know. He did allege ref shenanigans favoring the Lakers in Game 6 of the 2002 series against the Kings — which was no surprise to Kings fans outraged immediately after that game. Remember last regular NBA season, one of the last games of the Dubs they played the Lakers at Staples — the Lakers HAD to win it to have a shot at the last playoff spot – it was the game Kobe tore his achilles. The Lakers shot over 50 free throws, something like 30 more than the Dubs. If a Dubs guy got even within the same zip code as the Laker guy with the ball, it was a foul. It was so transparent what was going on, it was hilarious. That’s the NBA under Stern. The Dubs still almost won. Some of the baseball umps are incompetent, out of shape and clearly full of themselves. But, I don’t think they rig games. A home plate ump definitely could skew a game towards one team with ball and strike calls, and if he were really good, it would be near impossible to tell what he was doing…
Yeah, the overall point is, a pro league ref was caught red-handed fixing games, and the angst around it was minimal. I was stupefied it didn’t explode into a huge deal.
Why not the NFL or MLB?
Some of you might have seen some of the MLB network’s “countdown” shows on this past week. I find them entertaining. One of them was about all-time blunders. On the list was Denkinger’s huge blown call against the Cardinals in the ’85 World Series. They had a clip of Denkinger explaining: “I looked to see if the firstbaseman caught the ball, and then I looked down to see if the runner was safe.”
Wow- that’s some awesome umping technique there. I can’t see the flaw in THAT.
Looks like more bad news for the Dawkins haters, as Cards are up 11 with under a minute. Second year in a row Monty, with the better team, has had his team whacked at home.
Z said it- bad refs. And many are too old and out of shape-baseball and football.