Lookout Landing: FanPosts

Fantasy Team Names

2010-03-20T22:47:16Z

Ok, I'm looking for good (ie funny, and preferably original) Fantasy team names. I'm tired of "Honey Nut Ichiros," so I've been trying to come up with another. So far the best I've thought of is "Chone-ass Brothers" (obviously you have to go with the phonetic pronunciation for that to work). Most of the others are either not M's ("Mein Kemp"), out of date ("Huff the Magic D-Ray"), or just lame (no, I'm not giving examples).

So, ideas?

SB Nation Survey + Chance to donate $500 to a charity of this community's choice

2010-03-20T00:47:58Z

>> Take SB Nation Survey

Hello sports fans! We're always striving to provide you with the best experience possible and it's been quite some time since we checked in with you.

So we're rolling out this survey to learn more about you and your sports world. It should only take about 10 minutes to complete.

We really appreciate your time and this is also going to help make a donation to a good cause.

By next Thursday (3/25) at 11:59pm PST the site that has the highest percentage of their community filling out the attached survey about their sports interests and consumption will win $500 to donate to a charity of their choice. We will leave it up to the discretion of the community manager(s) of the winning blog to decide how to choose the particular charity.

You can take the survey HERE

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WYR2WQT

Thanks for your support!

Official NCAA Tournament Day 1 Open Thread

2010-03-18T16:24:12Z

Self-explantory. Basketball discussion = OK. Beer discussion = OK. GTE = OK. Robert-baiting = OK. SB-baiting = pointless, UCLA isn't in the tourney.

Link to LL Bracket Group!

9:20 AM West - (7) Brigham Young 99 vs. (10) ~~Florida~~ 92 FINAL 2OT

9:25 AM South - (6) ~~Notre Dame~~ 50 vs. (11) Old Dominion 51 FINAL

9:30 AM South - (2) Villanova 73 vs. (15) ~~Robert Morris~~ 70 FINAL OT

11:30 AM West - (4) ~~Vanderbilt~~ 65 vs. (13) Murray State 66 FINAL

11:40 AM West - (2) Kansas State 82 vs. (15) ~~North Texas~~ 62 FINAL

11:45 AM South - (3) Baylor 68 vs. (14) ~~Sam Houston State~~ 59 FINAL

11:50 AM South - (7) Saint Mary's 80 vs. (10) ~~Richmond~~ 71 FINAL

1:45 PM West (5) Butler 77 vs. (12) ~~Texas-El Paso~~ 59 FINAL

4:10 PM Midwest (8) Nevada-Las Vegas 66 vs. (9) Northern Iowa 69 FINAL

4:15 PM East (1) Kentucky 100 vs. (16) East Tennessee State 71 FINAL

4:20 PM East (6) Marquette 78 vs. (11) Washington 80 FINAL

4:25 PM Midwest (3) Georgetown 83 vs. (14) Ohio 97 FINAL

6:30 PM Midwest (1) Kansas vs. (16) Lehigh

6:35 PM East (8) Texas vs. (9) Wake Forest

6:40 PM East (3) New Mexico vs. (14) Montana

6:45 Midwest (6) Tennessee vs. (11) San Diego State

So, "Bullpen Conglomeration Guy" needs a name...

2010-03-18T06:37:52Z

Being the weirdo that I am, ever since this lovely community has embraced the "Bullpen Conglomeration Guy" in the recent set of Mariners commercials as one of its own, I've been trying to come up with a good name for him. So, of course, when Shields turned his Twitter avatar into "Bullpen Conglomeration Guy" that pushed my brain into full steam. We had a conversation about that very thing...

The natural inclination, of course, is to take some sort of hybrid combination of all of their names. I suppose we could limit the list to those guys who appear in the commercial. Jon came up with "Shavedon Aaloweguitey" which fits this mold. "Chris Shelton" works well enough, too.

But given our past use of the Internet Anagram Server to find (or re-discover) such gems as "Reefer Jaw" (Jeff Weaver) and "Beluga Tits" (Miguel Batista), I had to spend a few minutes brainstorming over there. Working its magic, and my distorted, warped brain, I discovered this:

Barnie Nullsperm

My thinking was - we don't really have the full list of who'll be in the bullpen to start the season, so it has to be something generic. So I used "Mariners Bullpen" as the text to anagram.

Being the community-oriented guy I am, I thought I'd run it by you weirdos. Any other brilliant ideas?

3/20 -- Return of Flag Football

2010-03-17T22:16:45Z

It's been a couple of months since I've posted about this. A group of us who post here (and/or used to post here) have been playing Flag Football on a weekly basis, and we could use a couple more players.

Come on down to the backside of Garfield High School (25th Ave and Alder St) at 1:00pm on Saturday and we'll have a game. There is a facebook event here if you'd like to look at more details. We usually play for two or three hours and then go have some food either at the Elysian or at Piecora's Pizza on Capitol Hill where we discuss the game we played, baseball topics, beer, and anything else. Under 21-ers are welcome.

We are not a terribly athletic group; we ran 40-yard dashes last week before we played, and our average time was probably about 5.6 seconds. Our top time was 5.0, and our low time was about 6.4 or something.

Also, if you can't come play but you want to hear more on facebook about future games, events, and things (we might join an Underdog League this fall if we determine we're not gonna get creamed every week and we're looking into designing t-shirts), check out our facebook group page and add yourself.

OTFPOTM, 2010-03-17 - Words With Friends, NCAA Tournament and Beer!

2010-03-17T17:58:17Z

Scruffy's OFFTOP is starting to slow down a bit in comments and size, so here's a new one with some new topics!

Words With Friends on the iPhone/iPod touch is fantastic. Do you have it? If you do, what's your username? Play with me @SeattleBruin!
NCAA Tournament starts tomorrow! Who's in the Final Four? Upset specials? South regional - bad region or worst region ever? (I mean seriously, Duke and Villanova are the top two seeds? There's a region where Baylor has a legitimate chance to lose in the first round OR make the Final Four? ugh)
BEER!! - it's been a while since we had a beer thread, so feel free to discuss here (not that we don't just do that anyway).
- Recent things I've liked - Dogfish Head Festina Peche, Russian River Salvation, New Belgium La Folie, Stone Smoked Porter with Chipotle, The Bruery Trade Winds, Russian River Pliny the Younger, Ballast Point Victory at Sea.
- What have you had that's been good lately? What's in your cupboard? How drunk are you right now?

Poll

For me, St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo are

Looking for Help to Upload Photos

2010-03-16T16:32:27Z

Hey Guys,

Sorry in advance for this novice question. How do you upload personal photos onto this site? As you know, it asks for a URL, but as far as I know I do not have a URL link to the photos.

I was recently at the Mariners vs. Diamondbacks game in Tucson, where Cliff Lee was thrown out. I would like to share some of those pictures from the game.

Thank you for your time,

Bryce

MLB TV Premium/ 1 yr for $19.95

2010-03-16T15:44:20Z

I got this off of slickdeals.net. My card has been charged and it looks good. Lots of folks in the forums are able to watch old games already. If you need boxee help, I'll post what I can. But, for $20 for a year, I'm willing to take a risk.

Claims to need Boxee, but Boxee is a free download. Its good for the year! I got mine. Good luck.

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/subscripti...duct=boxee

Unearthing a nice memory. Can you help me out here?

2010-03-16T03:53:46Z

Just this morning I was thinking about Ben Broussard. Somehow I came across a factoid about him and I was immediately taken to the memory of his game-tying (or go ahead?) homer on Turn Back The Clock Day a few years ago. I seem to remember trailing and making a late-game rally in the 8th inning or so and Ben Broussard pinch hitting and taking the first pitch into the stands. It was the one where he pointed over in Red's general direction and Safeco went nuts. I may be getting some of the history of it wrong; memory is fungible. I recall it very fondly as a sunny Seattle day in our powder blue uniforms with a sort of FanFest-like atmosphere. Most of all, I always loved Ben Broussard.

So, I was wondering if there was anywhere I could find a video of that home run, that game in its entirety, or any sort of highlight reel? I couldn't find it on seattlemariners.com (which was a probably a futile effort anyway, but whatever), nor Youtube.

If there are any old torrents that may have it, I'd love to get my hands on it. I think it was 2006 or 2007.

Thanks.

Kill it now! Riggleman and McLaren back again

2010-03-16T01:43:20Z

So I am quite late in reading my trusty Sunday Washington Post, but I was shocked to find this story in the sports section. In case you don't want to read, it's a story about how Jim Riggleman has hired John McLaren as his bench coach, just as John McLaren did to Riggleman 2 years ago. As if the vortex of Bavasi-era suck wasn't enough, the picture (not included online, sadly) that accompanies the article is captioned as such: "Nationals Manager Jim Riggleman, left, and John McLaren congratulate Mike Morse following a two-run homer earlier this spring."

Read that again: Riggleman and McLaren, celebrating Mike Morse spring success. It gave me a bit of a terror.

As if the Nats didn't have it bad enough, they're just taking the parts of shitty Ms teams that KC doesn't want. Poor Strasburg.

What makes A-Rod such a good hitter?

2010-03-15T21:49:59Z

Perhaps I should go to some Yankee fansite if I really want to find people to examine this question, but I figure there might be lingering interest around here in our pay-ward son. This Hardball Times post on batter selectivity reminded me of a question that came up while looking at the background data on another post about the peak production of hall of fame shortstops: What exactly makes A-Rod such a good hitter? His plate discipline stats on Fangraphs indicate his K% has been better than average since he became a regular, and his BB% increased to better than average during his last year with the M's and has stayed that way. That is despite the fact that his O-Swing and Z-Swing rates fluctuate right around average, and his contact rates are actually consistently below average. His BABIP has fluctuated between average and way above average, and his ISO has, of course, always been quite high. The percentage of pitches he sees in the zone has consistently been below average.

I'm not experienced in interpreting these stats, but as I read it, A-Rod has been an average to above average hitter who generates massive power. His low O-Contact rates may actually help him if he tends to swing and miss when he gets fooled rather than weakly putting the ball in play. Continuing the at-bat may be more likely to lead to a BB than a K since pitchers are dancing around the zone out of respect for his power. I was really surprised that his contact rates are that low.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone who reads the data differently. The big thing I took from this is what can result from being exceptional at one component skill if it comes without sacrificing too much of the other ones. Is it true that average-ish pure hitting plus exceptional power can put you on a HOF path? Attaching that to a shortstop makes it a no-brainer, of course (and it seems like overkill to me, but then I guess some people put sugar on Cookie Crisp cereal, too).

Book on the '95 Division Series

2010-03-15T13:47:34Z

Forgive me for some shameless self promoting, but I thought Mariner fans might want to know about my new book out called Baseball's Greatest Series: Yankees, Mariners and the 1995 Matchup That Changed History. The book details the 1995 Division Series between the Yankees and the Mariners. Considering the outcome of that series, I think Mariner fans will enjoy it. I discuss the painful years early years of Seattle (including all the owners, bad trades, etc.), the Piniella led resurgance of the early '90s and all five games of the series as well as the aftermath. I conducted interviews with approximately 70 people involved either with the series or with the Mariners or Yankees in some way during the '80s and early '90s and I think there is enough tid bits and action in there for all to enjoy. The book is now out and can be found at a bookstore near you or online at amazon. Hope you will check it out and, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

-Chris Donnelly

3/14/10 Offtop - Visual Awesomeness!

2010-03-14T16:55:39Z

My first Offtop! And somehow its not going to be a gif dump.

Since the Oscars there has been a lot of movie debat which led to some tech talk so I just wanted to share this.

Color Theory

Its a real interesting look on how Color is assisting the movies storyline.

Normal discussions topics are permitted but I also want to know - What are some of your favorite cinematography moments in film? Favorite Cinematographers? Favorite Photographs? Favorite Photographers?

3/10/10 Offtop of Woohoo new things

2010-03-11T02:39:02Z

New OT, frankly because that other one was getting really full plus I wanted to post my first OT plus I just bought a new cell phone because my screen had cracked on my current one. I bought a white MyTouch 3G which comes with the 3.5mm headphone jack and the Swype keyboard. I love new things because the first couple of days are full of the joys of figuring out everything in it. Ah, the joy of discovery. Swype seems like that it will be pretty awesome to use and hopefully once I get used to it I will be able to type at/above the 40 word a minute benchmark.

What are some recommended Android apps? iMusic and Ringdroid were both recommended by T-Mobile.

So what has been your favorite major purchase? What has been your most disappointing major purchase?

Also, new poll.

Poll

Which type of phone do you have/want?

The Banner Unveiled

2010-03-10T16:43:49Z

The banner is complete and it looks great! There is no way this thing will be missed as it is very large at 10' by 2.5'. The plan as of now is to carry it when we do our march to the game at noon on Opening Day, so if anyone wants to join us for that it is my understanding that we are meeting at Occidental Park. Royalcurve can correct me if I am wrong on that.

Between Brett, myself and the other guys I share seats with I think we can get this up at almost every game this season. It is a high quality vinyl sign so even with it being taken down and stowed every game I still think it should survive the whole season.

As I mentioned before, I will be offering two seats to a game behind the sign to Royalcurve, pdb, okdan and Englishmariner for their work in getting this done. If Englishmariner cannot make it to Seattle this year we will hook him up some other time. Between the sign costs and my cost for the seats we fell a little short with our funds so I will cover the difference, but sadly no cash will be going to sexy people from this.

I think that is it. I for one cannot wait for the damn season to start. Go M's and GMZ!

Fullscreen MLB.TV on Dual Screen Setups

2010-03-09T19:21:53Z

Hat tip to Faux for pointing me out to a link that got me started on the right path.

For those of you who have used MLB.TV (or any other Flash-based web video playback) and have a dual screen monitor setup have likely run into a very annoying problem. Whenever you have your video stream set to full screen and you navigate to work on your second screen, MLB.TV loses its focus and collapses back to the smaller window. This is a function of Flash's default code. To get around this problem, you can easily tweak the default behavior.

For 32-bit Windows XP and Windows 7 users, the solution is simple. Simply download FlashHacker and run it on your PC.

If you're running on a 64-bit operating system, there are a few more steps that are required. Not to worry, it's still fairly straightforward.

Uninstall Flash
Install a fresh copy of Flash
Download this modified .dll file
Close your web browser
Navigate to C:\windows\sysWOW64\Macromed\Flash
Replace "NPSWF32.dll" with the modified file you just downloaded

You should be able to launch an MLB.TV stream in fullscreen (or any Flash video) and work on your second screen without it minimizing anymore.

Note: For 64-bit users, you may not need to do steps 1 and 2. I couldn't get it to work until I installed a clean copy of Flash, but that may just be me.

Note 2: I've tested this with both Windows XP and Windows 7. The procedure for Windows Vista should be identical.

Texas Mariners Fans

2010-03-09T16:45:07Z

Hello!

My name is James and I have been a longtime lurker, having enjoyed this community from afar for a few years now.

I moved to Dallas, TX after last fall after eight years in Seattle. The Ms are playing opening weekend against the Rangers (April 9th, 10th and 11th), and if anyone is in the DFW area during that weekend, or if there are any other Texas-area Mariners fans, let me know! I'd love to go to a game.

Thanks,

James

A Thought on Baseball Management and Behavioral Economics

2010-03-08T19:10:27Z

This is a thought per two articles I've read recently. The first was Dave Cameron on Fangraphs asking where Sabermetrics should go next. The other was Larry Stone's interview of Don Wakamatsu in the Maple Street Annual.

Specifically Wakamatsu said that part of why he bunts is, "everyone on the bench has to get off their seat when a guy [bunts]. That's the dynamic that's not in the numbers." My initial instinct was to dismiss this sort of thing as silliness. Whether or not you jumped out of your seat in the previous inning should have no bearing on your performance going forward. But then later, Wakamatsu said when referring to player platoons, that a sense of fairness comes into play. And this made me think of managerial actions through the lens of behavioral economics.

Specifically I thought of the dictator game which essentially looks at how people respond to being given a portion of a fixed allocation of resources. In the game there is a fixed amount of resources (say, 100 dollars) and 2 players (players A and B). Player A allocates themselves a portion of the resources leaving the remainder for Player B. Player B then gets to accept the allocation given to them, or reject it and both players wind up with nothing. In a perfectly rational world Player B would accept any non-zero number; they would be getting more than the nothing they had initially. However, in experimental settings, the threshold for rejection was far higher than zero (usually in the 25-30% range). Basically what this shows is that we’re biased against decisions we perceive as unfair, and this bias will lead us to act in ways that are detrimental to our own performance.

Now this game doesn’t correlate perfectly to divvying up at bats in a platoon setting, specifically the idea of rejection and the consequences of rejection are quite different, but I think that one could model a game such as this to investigate the psychological aspects of baseball more deeply. How would you measure managerial trust? I’m not sure. But I bet you could come closer to quantifying its value.

Part of the appeal of baseball to the statistically inclined part of my brain is that it is a deeply controlled game. Each interaction is both able to be quantified and discrete (pitcher/hitter matchup, ball in play, baserunning decisions). Also, the end goal is very simple: win. How do you win? Score more runs than your opponent. Runs and run prevention are perfect measures of utility. Every action on the field has a definitive measure of utility.

But with all of that said, baseball players, like all people are irrational. Perhaps more so. And this is where Dave’s article comes into play. I think there are two related questions that haven’t really been sufficiently addressed in a scientific way: how do you motivate players to behave in a utility maximizing fashion (get them to want to bunt only when bunting makes sense statistically), and if some of those techniques involve in-game strategies that do not maximize expected run value, are there times when those seemingly irrational strategies are actually preferable? Maybe the motivational force of a borderline bunting decision actually has sufficient value in player performance to serve as a rational decision in an irrational world. I don't know, but I bet we could find these answers.

Note: It’s very possible that what this post is about has been addressed elsewhere. I just haven’t seen it much in the SABR community, so I figured I might as well write this up. Also, I haven't posted a FanPost before... hopefully this comes out okay.

3/8/10 OFFTOP of Oscar annoyances

2010-03-08T16:14:07Z

I am posting this OT because, well, the other one was too far down the page and I have grown tired of having to scroll down to find it. There. I said it.

ANYWAYS - I will be the first to admit, I didn't watch the Oscars last night. Although, judging by the running commentary in the previous OTFPOTD, there were quite a few who did. Here is what I know - The Hurt Locker beat Furn Gully in Space (told my fiancee that this morning, she asked "What's the Hurt Locker?" So that was interesting..) and Sandra Bullock won for something. That in and of itself is worthy of a "stop the presses" moment, apparently.

But hey, she was hot in Speed!

Who watched the Oscars? What are your gripes?

Finally, a couple more things. People in Seattle know how to drive in the rain - that is a simple fact. Another simple fact? Arizonans cannot. Also, Battlefield Bad Company 2 - great game, or shitty game? Because in my time with it, I am leaning towards the latter.

As per the request on the last thread, OT poll time!

Poll

People who are horrible drivers are the most annoying when...

Y! Fantasy Baseball League Openings

2010-03-08T02:33:50Z

Several buddies and I started a Yahoo fantasy BB league last year and we happen to have some managers that decided not to register for this season. I'd like to offer those spots to my fellow LLer's.

Here's the specifics---

League Name: Water

Password: baseball

Hitting cats: AB, R, H, 2B, 3B, HR, RBI, SB, BB, AVG, OPS

Pitching cats: IP, W, CG, SV, ER, K, HLD, ERA, QS

Right now the draft is scheduled for this Thursday (the 11th) at 8pm, but that's fluid depending on everyone's schedules and availability.