Box Score: Blue Jays 7, Indians 4
April 7, 2012Game 3: Derek Lowe’s Debut
April 8, 2012While We’re Waiting serves as the early morning gathering of WFNY-esque information for your viewing pleasure. Have something you think we should see? Send it to our tips email at tips@waitingfornextyear.com.
The Tribe is frustrating. I know there’s 160 games to go. But still. Frustrating. “Certainly there were things that did or did not happen in the first two games that none of us hope become trends – specifically the offense looking inconsistent and not winning two games that should have been won based on the starting pitching performances by Masterson (huzzah) and Ubaldo (HUZZAH) in the first two games. However, as much as “trends” and “worries” easily consume us this early in the season, let’s remember that nothing really has happened of note as they’ve played all of two games, which breaks down to 1.2% of the season and anyone asserting anything as fact after one or two games…well, they’re not doing it right.
If you want to talk about how Perez’s performance was concerning, particularly in light of the idea that Tribe trainer Lonnie Soloff implied that he wasn’t in shape in Spring Training and how he really didn’t get “his work in” during a shortened Spring Training for him or how the onus of scoring runs is going to fall heavily onto the shoulders of Santana, Choo, Cabrera, and Kipnis in the lineup as it’s presently constructed?
That’s fine…but let’s hold off on the absolute proclamations for a while here. Remember that the 2008 Opener claimed Victor via injury and that the White Sox (whose 2011 was a disaster) beat the Indians in the 1st two games of 2011 by scores of 15-10 and 8-3, right before the Indians won 30 of their next 42 games. That’s not to say that there aren’t red flags that are starting to rise over the corner of Carnegie and Ontario…it’s just that it isn’t worth analyzing any of those “red flags” after two games.” [Paul Cousineau/The DiaTribe]
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I’m skeptical of many of tanking “fixes”. “In a presentation at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Adam Gold presented a concept where the team that wins the most games after they are eliminated from playoff contention, gets the first pick in the draft.
For the article at ESPN, see here.
I really like the idea, with one tweak; set the baseline as the “median playoff team” instead of “out of playoff contention”- i.e. the team with the NBA’s 8th best record. The presented concept places too much importance on the strength of a team’s conference. A thirty win team in a strong conference would start racking up opportunities to improve their draft position far in advance on a thirty win team in a weak conference.
To make this more clear, I’ll address how the idea would impact the race for the #1 pick during this season. The basic idea (slightly modified, but totally stolen from Adam Gold) consists of: once a team has enough losses that they cannot surpass the win total of the NBA team with the 8th most wins, the “draft positioning clock” starts for them. The team with the most victories after their “draft positioning clock” starts, gets the first pick in the draft.” [Kevin Hetrick/Cavs: The Blog]
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The Canton Charge are headed to the D-League playoffs. “In their first season ever in the National Basketball Developmental League, the Canton Charge have officially secured a playoff berth. The Charge’s playoff seed may change depending on their final game of the season at home to Erie on Sunday night. The one thing they do know though is that they will host at least one playoff game.
The Charge are owned by the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert. The Charge have had Cavalier players Luke Harangody, Christian Eyenga (since traded to the Lakers) and Manny Harris on their roster at different junctures of the current campaign.
Entering the playoffs. Harangody is their best player as he’s scoring about 20 points per game in the 15 games he’s played for Canton.”[John Fraase/Fear The Sword]
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Fooled me too. “Someone posing as Alabama running back Trent Richardson has been using Twitter this week to make it seem as if the real draft prospect has been flirting with the possibility of playing for the Browns.
The account — @trentrich03 — has more than 16,000 followers, but is fake, according to Josh Maxson, an associate communications director in the University of Alabama’s athletic department.
“It is not real,” Maxson wrote in an e-mail to the Beacon Journal. “Trent does not have a Twitter (account) and isn’t planning on getting one.”
The tweets from the impostor have become topics of conversation on Cleveland sports radio and the blogosphere.
I was a victim of this prank, too, because I posted messages from the fake account on this blog earlier today. After some of my Twitter followers mentioned they thought it might be a fraud, I sought a definitive answer. I apologize to all of my readers for creating any confusion.”[Nate Ulrich/Ohio.com]
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I like charts. “It’s time for the second edition of our “Tracking the Cleveland Browns Draft Interests” feature. A total of 14 players were added since the last edition, and three other players added an “x” to one of their columns. The total of workouts/visits reported so far is 23, so it would seem as though the team could bring in 7 more players before April’s draft.
After the jump, you will find a table that lists the players that the Cleveland Browns have supposedly met with or scouted from either the Senior Bowl, their Pro Day, or a Private Workout. The list is not comprehensive, as I’m sure the team has scouted more players who aren’t listed here. These are the ones who have supposedly been confirmed by media sources.” [Chris Pokorny/Dawgs By Nature]
2 Comments
The only thing worse than fake Twitter accounts are the people that run them.
Get that Hillis pic out of there!