Minnesota Timberwolves v. Cleveland Cavaliers: Behind the Box Score
December 23, 2014The good, the bad, and the ugly of the defense: Cleveland Browns Film Room
December 24, 2014Last week, I shared five different top-five lists as a way to ring out 2014. I wrote that post not knowing if I’d do another While We’re Waiting this year since I usually take Thursdays and Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are Thursdays this year. But looky here, I’m back! I’m subbing for TD on a Wednesday. *cues “Whole New World” GIF*
Anyway, the top-five lists from last week went over so well, I’m back with a variety of lists and things this week. Hope you enjoy and happy holidays.
Five #hottakes about Andrew Wiggins and his return to Cleveland last night
5: Wiggins’ game is somewhat unaesthetic. Yes, there are the chase down blocks. Sure, he’s freakishly athletic. But he’s not a good shooter yet by any means. He’s got a bit of James Harden to his offensive style in terms of drawing a TON of fouls.
4: How can you not cheer for this guy, though? One of my favorite things about Wiggins is just his quiet and calm demeanor. After that bad late charge call, the thought crossed my head that refs will LOVE Wiggins compared to LeBron’s constant complaining.
3: I’m really tiring of Dave Berri’s shtick with Wiggins. Berri is the professor well known for his Wages of Wins books. He is routinely pointing out that Wiggins is (supposedly) among the NBA’s least productive players. Yo, the kid is 19 and on a terrible team. Cool it.
2: Although, one can recall all of the various analytics models prior to the draft. Compared to Jabari Parker, the numbers had Wiggins with a lower probability of not being a bust and a higher probability of being a star, but also a higher probability of being just a bench contributor. Curious.
1: Now, stop. … Don’t even think about it. The Cavs would be significantly worse if they had just kept Wiggins and Bennett and not traded for Kevin Love. Don’t even think about that at all. Stop it.
Ranking of the five lowest estimated 2015 American League payrolls, via Baseball-Reference.com
5: Minnesota Twins $104.0 million; 70-92 record in 2014
4: Cleveland Indians $83.5 million; 85-77 record in 2014
3: Tampa Bay Rays $74.7 million; 77-85 record in 2014
2: Oakland Athletics $67.9 million; 88-74 record in 2014
1: Houston Astros $65.8 million; 70-92 record in 2014
Obviously, these estimates can and will change. There remain some low-to-mid-level free agents still on the market. There are still some internal numbers that could change for every team. But man, this list is rough. For comparison’s sake: Six National League teams are projected to be in the $85-99 million range. No American League team is projected in that range.
The White Sox boosted their payroll way up to $114.5 million. Seattle is up there at $119.3 million. The Royals just crossed over the nine-figure mark at $104.7 million. Toronto ($128.5 million) surpassed Boston ($115.6 million). Even the terrible Rangers are at $130.9 million. The American League is loaded with money from top to bottom.
Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean much on the playing field. Tampa Bay and Oakland have destroyed that narrative for well over a decade. But the AL Central and the entire American League has improved since 2014. The Indians could be in store for some internal improvements too … but it’s certainly going to be a dogfight to make the playoffs in 2015.
My list of 2014’s five most underappreciated Cleveland sports athletes
5: Lonnie Chisenhall … Lonnie was a slightly below average MLB player this season. He was horrendous defensively. He was quite good offensively. I don’t think people really appreciate how good that offense was, though. The 121 wRC+ was No. 47 among qualified players … sandwiched between Yan Gomes and new signee Brandon Moss.
4: Tristan Thompson … Tristan is a 23-year-old defensively versatile offensive rebounding machine who can really change the entire energy of games in 25-30 minute doses per night. Overall, he’s a perfectly average NBA player. That’s valuable. His restricted free agency is going to be absolutely fascinating to watch unfold.
3: Asdrubal Cabrera … Asdrubal contributed 17.5 jWAR (defined here) over 914 games with the Cleveland Indians. He was a slightly above average major league shortstop for the equivalent of 5.5 seasons. Like Jhonny Peralta before him, Cabrera just got a terrible rap from the fans for his inconsistent bat and his terrible defense. But the entire value of Asdrubal was good.
2: Carlos Santana … Can I just rewrite this article and plug in the updated stats every year? Sure, Michael Brantley exploded onto the scene in 2014 and that makes the lead comparison in that article a bit outdated. But Santana is really fricking good! Stop complaining about him, folks! He now has 16.1 jWAR in 650 career games. His 132 wRC+ is just outstanding. Plug him into the lineup every day and figure out the rest later.
1: Joe Thomas … Eight NFL seasons, eight Pro Bowls, zero missed snaps. He has the longest active streak (7,856) of offensive snaps in the league. He is one Pro Bowl away from tying the franchise record set by Jim Brown and Lou Groza. It’s looking like Joe Thomas is a Hall of Famer, folks. And about those penalties? He is still PFF’s No. 2 tackle this season. So stop it. Enjoy him while he’s still around. There might not be another one like him for any team ever again.
Top five Vines of the early 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers season
5: Watch more sports, kid. Not actual basketball. But still quite, quite funny.
Should watch more sports, kid. https://t.co/nPxUPmyiZq
— Busted Coverage (@bustedcoverage) December 3, 2014
4: Dion being Dion. Was debating picking one of the Love-LeBron outlets … but this is so classic Dion.
The Struggle https://t.co/9ul8J3P64q
h/t @threaten
— ☕netw3rk (@netw3rk) November 1, 2014
3: LeBron fakes out Thabo. This bench mobbing reminded me of the Delonte West days. Man, I miss Delonte.
LeBron breaks Thabo Sefolosha's ankles, bench loves it https://t.co/uSgY6ijfx5
— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) December 18, 2014
2: Jay Z in Brooklyn. Watch Beyonce’s face throughout this Vine. Her wide-open gaping mouth is an underrated part of this.
Jay Z's reaction to LeBrons insane fadeaway shot https://t.co/02Upd9kw7X
— TK (@Lil_TK21) December 9, 2014
1: Andy shakes it off. Taylor Swift trump card. Sorry folks, you should have seen this coming. (Get better soon, Andy.)
https://twitter.com/SChasenKU/status/535300053003681792
Shameless self-promotion: My 10 favorite articles that I wrote during 2014
10: No more-deserving Cinderella than the lovable Dayton Flyers. I went with the homer choice for my most under-the-radar Ohio sports moments last week. So this article takes the No. 10 spot in my very difficult article ranking. Wrote this here at WFNY in late March during the Elite Eight run.
9: On Michael Brantley’s surprisingly bad defensive metrics. Surprisingly, this is my only baseball article on this list. And it’s something I wrote in late August at WFNY. I wrote some other detailed pieces on contract situations for Ubaldo Jimenez, Justin Masterson and Jason Kipnis earlier in the year … but those didn’t age too well. This Brantley article really pushed me to think critically.
8: Why Studying Math is a Sexy Choice for Your Future. In mid-November at the revamped Oregon MBA blog. Advice I got when I was a teenager: Don’t only study journalism. Advice that I saw on Twitter again yesterday: Don’t only study journalism.
https://twitter.com/martinrickman/status/547419418192388096
7: All the numbers on new Cleveland star Kevin Love. I spent a ton of time in this article in early August. If I recall, I finished the article while driving with my family to Chicago. It was that kind of week. But really, I dove super in depth on everything statistical for Kevin Love and basketball.
6: Is the NBA on the Brink of League-Wide Offensive Records? Over at Nylon Calculus. Wrote this in mid-October before the start of the season. With three-pointers becoming more and more frequent and a whole slew of other developments, offensive is so hot right now.
5: MANIFESTO: Why the weekly analytics “Roundup” is so important. In late October at the Sports Analytics Blog. I’ll share another article soon about why I started doing the regular analytics roundups. But I feel really passionately about them and the entire sports analytics community.
4: An analytics reader’s guide to the 2014 NBA Draft. As you all know, I love curating and compiling together topical research. This post I put together in late June at WFNY before the eventual selection of Andrew Wiggins at No. 1. It was a blast – although a ton of work – to organize all of the best statistical articles about the NBA draft this summer.
3: Hey Nate Silver, you ignored Kyrie Irving’s age. Response articles always are fun! In late May, I used WFNY as a vehicle to respond to a Nate Silver article at his relaunched FiveThirtyEight site about giving Kyrie Irving a max extension. My thesis: Kyrie’s relative youth compared to past No. 1 draft picks makes his potential a special case. Never heard back from FiveThirtyEight about this, though.
2: Who promotes sports analytics? Musings from Day 2 at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Here at WFNY, again in early March right after my return from Boston. As I’ve liked to explain dramatically to friends, Sloan was my “sports analytics existential crisis.” It was incredibly overwhelming. But at the same time, I felt a renewed motivation to do something to encourage public research and innovation in sports analytics. So I reached out to Jonathan Gordon at Sports Analytics Blog … and, well, the rest is history. I guess.
1: Playing the Odds: Everything we know about the Cavaliers and analytics. Of course, my epic long-form piece in mid-March at WFNY. I also spent an incredible amount of time researching, rewriting and fact-checking all sorts of things for this article. It was a funny kind of piece; I didn’t interview anyone for it. David Griffin answered some questions in a press conference setting to WFNY boss Scott Sargent. But that’s it. My point was really just to share all of the public works out there about the then-two analytics minds behind the Cavs’ curious moves.
4 Comments
Last night was my first extended look at Wiggins, and confirms what I thought: this is a lot like what the rookie Ron Harper looked like before his shredded knee made him morph into an earthbound wily vet. Young fella is a cheetah. His jump shot will get there. And if he learns the game he can dominate. Jacob, we are allowed to daydream about what might have occurred had Griffin installed him at SG next to James. Yes, the deal had to be done but there’s a little nagging thought that wonders what would have happened if the Cavs had stood firm with the ‘Wolves.
Alas, Anthony Bennett … all the corrective surgeries, diet adjustments and new-found discipline apparently haven’t taken quite yet. The diff between those two first overall picks is pretty remarkable.
Your piece about Kyrie’s age was my fav. Keep up the good work.
http://img.pandawhale.com/post-36434-Tyrion-Lannister-cheers-gif-dr-iK5y.gif
asdrubal wasn’t underrated, he was overrated. glove of roger dorn and the uncanny ability to hit into a double play at the worst possible time rivals only casey blake who was quite possiblely the most terrible baseball player ever.