Words of wisdom

Good words of wisdom from the blog, The Big Picture:

"One of the things we have harped on around here is the tendency for humans to be backwards looking in their sentiment.

The Recency Effect means we monkeys place disproportionate emphasis on recent stimuli or observations, regardless of worth or significance. Indeed, investors become bullish after they buy stocks, bearish after they sell them, as part of the self-rationalization process to justify their actions."

As I said to someone just yesterday, it's tough always striving to play the role of contrarian.

Jets...class act.

I got Tyler, he's 3... LaKesha, she's 3 ... Jersey...3...

How can he possibly remember the playbook? His brain is filled with Baby names.

Number of the Day - 17

17 ... 17 Blown Saves for the Red Sox this season. Only two teams have blown more, 40-75 Baltimore and 57-56 Florida Marlins. Yikes. Now, the Red Sox save percentage is 67%, which ranks them 16th out of 30 teams in baseball. Poor, but not terrible. The problem comes from too MANY save opportunities. The Yankees have 11 blown saves including the one from Mariano yesterday. However, since they often blow teams out, the Yankees only have had 39 save opportunities. The Red Sox have 51 - Fifty One! Nearly one out of every two games is a save opportunity. Papelbon has 6 blown saves this year, matching a high for the year for an entire season. We still have 46 some odd games to play. Although the number of save situations has placed the Red Sox in a difficult predicament, it hasn't lead to an overuse of their closer, Papelbon. His appearences are in-line with the other closers in the league. So what's going on with Pap, and what happens next year?

In the last two years, Papelbon's WHIP (Walks and Hits per Inn Pitched)has been elevated at 1.15 for both years. 2006, 7 and 8 were all under 1.0. Yet, 1.15 isn't terrible. In fact, among the American League closers, it's above average, but not dominant. Mariano Rivera is at 0.71, and hasn't had a season above 1.12 since his first year as a closer at 1.19. Still young and unproven, but Daniel Bard is at 0.86.

The killer has been Pap's ERA. At 3.65, it's almost twice that of last season, and the highest of his career by almost an entire run. He's given up six homeruns and 13 doubles year-to-date, both more than any other full SEASON. His strikeouts per 9 innings pitched is down by almost two. Opponents are only batting .209 against him, but those that hit him, hit him hard. Opponent Slugging Percentage is .379 (compare that to Mariano at a .156 average and .224 slugging). Some of the difference can be attributed to Pap is a fly-ball pitcher, whereas with his cutter Mariano is a ground-ball pitcher. When Mariano gets hit, it's more singles. When Pap gets hit, its for long-balls.

Papelbon is in his contract year. He wants to be paid like a dominant closer. He wants Mariano money. Pap makes slightly below $10mm. Tampa's Rafeal Soriano make $7.25mm; Cincinnati's Francisco Cordero, $11.25mm; The Met's Francisco Rodriguez, $12.1mm; and the seemingly ageless Mariano makes $15mm this year.

Gritty closers are hard to find but, outside of Mariano, don't tend to have long useful lives. Pap had three great seasons, and is currently in his second above average season. He isn't a dominant closer anymore. Closing the save 82% of the time doesn't cut it. Top closers are closing 90+%. Red Sox management is aware of these facts, and will unlikely pay him top dollar - because he isn't worth top dollar. Don't be surprised to see Daniel Bard in that role next year.

BTW, Pap make those saves like a dominant closer should, and the Red Sox are in the wild-card lead.

Those ski lessons sure have paid off

The kids spent parts of 3 days learning to waterski at camp. They emerged with the ability and confidence to ski the length of the bay - as seen in the following quick video. It's a little longer than I'd like (3+ minutes), but I was having problems with my editing software. The camera is also just our little flip video, so it's not the highest quality.



The skis are currently connected. The next step will be to seperate them. However, that shouldn't be a problem since they seperated them already at camp.

Camp Pictures

Kids move on to another week of camp. This week is Water Sports camp. For the most part, they learn to waterski. They happened to spend a fair amount of time yesterday on/in the water between swimming, skiing and canoeing. They deemed it, "the best day of camp yet."

Here are some pictures from earlier weeks:

Update

Old boat is sold. All-in capital cost for use last year, storage over the winter and use this year = $400.

Say Goodbye to the Old, and Welcome the New

We upgraded our boat yesterday. Given all the time we spend on the water and my insatiable desire to go wakeboarding and wake surfing, we purchased a newer Supra ski boat. Bought it on Craigslist - what a great service. I've purchased now two boats, a lift and a golf cart through Craigslist. Hopefully, I'll sell a boat and a car through it too.

The new is a 2003 Supra Launch SSV Gravity Games Edition. It's a great wakeboarding boat. It rides smooth, and creates a large wake due to the built in ballast system. Since its a V-drive inboard, the engine is in the back as opposed to the middle. Consequently, there is much more room on te deck. It also has the wakeboard tower to pull boarders and tubers, alike.



The old boat will be missed. It's a 1985 Supra, and was well worth the money I paid for it. Great entry level boat that taught us how to be boat owners. However, it has served its purpose, and is now on the market. I only listed it yesterday and have three people looking at it.

As part of this package deal, I'm selling our 1991 Porsche convertible. I've had that car longer than I've had the kids! I'll miss that too, but we NEVER use it. I'd much rather invest the capital in something we are getting a lot of use from.

Ready for Some Football?

I've retired from active participation in Football Outsiders, and this year am not listed as an author. Nevertheless, it's great book that I still wish to promote:

http://www.amazon.com/Football-Outsiders-Almanac-2010-Essential/dp/1453671188/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279989316&sr=8-3

Ride 'em, cowgirl

Katie and Emily have finished their first of two weeks of Horse Camp. When I say, "horse camp," it's not a full day of riding. They go to the local YMCA camp; however, for each week you sign up, you can sign them up for a specialty. In this case, they ride horses for an hour a day. Originally, they were scheduled for only one week, but liked it so much, we moved them into two. Katie is riding Bella, and Emily is rising Cash. It's unclear whether they will have the same horses next week.

My Kind of Town...

We decided to meet in Chicago after Alison and the girls vacationed two weeks in New York. Although we only spent one full and two half days, we got a lot done and saw a bunch of interesting things.

We spent a good portion of Saturday with Alison's cousin Jay, his wife Becca and their 2 year old daughter Keelan at Navy Pier. From there, we went to see Blue Man Group. Alison and I had seen it in Boston years ago, but I thought it was just as good the second time around. The kids thought it hilarious. We ate dinner at Ditkas Steakhouse and called it a night.

Sunday morning we ate brunch atop the Hancock tower, traveled across town to walk the skydeck of the Sears building (now apparently called the Willis Tower), which included a "skywalk" with a glass floor. On the way back from Sears ...um... Willis, we saw them filming a scene for the upcoming Transformers 3.

Atop the Hancock

Skywalkers

On the Transformers set. PAs were running around telling the dozen or so amateur photographer, "no pictures." Um, last I know, you can't prevent me from taking a picture on a public sidewalk of a public street. Nice try.