How DO you like us now?

[PurnGoldy]

As the highly successful Rockies 2007 regular season comes down to the last day with playoff contention, the senselessness of early season "on pace" talk and panicky reactions comes to light. The wise sage HiAspire preached this over and over in the first six weeks of the season--that the 2007 Rockies were much-improved to the core and that baseball is a marathon, not a sprint.

My own post at the end of April...

As an example of how foolish early season "on pace" projections can be, last year the Padres started 9-15 and the Dodgers started with a 12-17 record. Both finished 88-74.

Guess who will be finishing with at least 88 wins this year after a slow start? That's right, our beloved Rockies who were put together by the new Mastermind in town, Dan O'Dowd.

By contrast, early in the year from the resident self-proclaimed "expert" on this board, we heard the Rockies called "ballerinas", we heard "this is the death spiral, folks", we heard "on pace for 66 wins"--all with cynical glee in hopes of the Rockies organization failing miserably.




Charlie Monfort and Rockies loyalists
have the last laugh over Kiszla, Gilligan,
and a certain local pert.

[HoyaRoxFan]

Don't forget, Dinger, PurnGoldy. Dinger has been senselessly bashed here like none other and it has to stop. Purple dinosaurs have long been held in questionable repute, and for crying out loud, they're endangered!!! Several posters here in particular have been very negative on Dinger, despite the obvious success he's been injecting into this team of late. Look how silly they look now. Certainly sillier than a purple dinosaur.

In several posts on this board, I have stood up for Dinger when few others would, and I'd like to take this moment to pat myself on the back for standing up for the little guy... or in this case, the big guy in the felt purple suit who gets treated like the little guy... Shame on you who show cruelty to the Dinger and question his motivations. I knew better all along. I am a wise sage too and I'm sure you forgetting me was just an oversight.

Unfortunately, I don't have a cool picture of me and the mascot, but hopefully, one day I will. That will be a great day.

Go Dinger!

[indianadrew]

Attachment 47

go dinger go

[Dante Bichette]

It is all good right now. I will even give Dinger props right now.

[BigRapidsJackass]

PurnGoldy, thank you for reemerging on this board just for the purpose of gloating ...

... hey, no offense taken (I know you aimed your jabs at Roxpert, but I'm the guy who "stuck a fork in 'em" about 23 days ago I think?). I'm thrilled to have been wrong. Here's what one of the BP guys had to say about it. It's exactly what I'd say too, and I imagine what Roxpert would say as well:

Two weeks ago, over at Sports Illustrated’s web site, I noted the Colorado Rockies‘ 2.1% chances at making the postseason, per the Playoff Odds Report, and I wrote:

In the NL West, the Rockies’ surge into contention was a little like a meteor shower– no sooner do you notice it’s happening than it’s over.

A strange thing happened almost immediately after those words went out to my editor. Colorado won, and won, and kept on winning. Ten games in a row after the article, thirteen out of fourteen to end the season. And now we’ll have a one-game tiebreaker tomorrow to decide whether they or the Padres will be the NL Wild Card.

It wasn’t the wrong call two weeks ago, to declare that the Rockies’ playoff run was effectively over. It took an unbelievably good stretch of baseball for them to force this tiebreaker. But even though I stand by what I wrote then, I’ll admit that one of the great pleasures of this last week has been the Rockies proving me wrong. Following their games down the stretch has more than justified the expense of my Extra Innings package. Teams defying expectations like this is what makes baseball enjoyable.
So tomorrow, as the Rockies face Jake Peavy in Denver, I’ll be rooting for them to finish the job. Maybe I’ll wind up eating a bit of crow as a result, but I hear it doesn’t taste all that bad.

[hiaspire]

It wasn’t the wrong call two weeks ago, to declare that the Rockies’ playoff run was effectively over.

But it WAS the wrong call. We can't be so in awe of our solutions that we declare them right even when they are wrong. That's what happens when the priority is on analyzing every single second instead of just enjoying the baseball season for the enduring ups and downs over a long summer. Remember all the drama and over-analysis over April/May games so very long ago? And beyond us, when did they stick a fork in the Phillies? Why do we need to even do that these days? It's almost like we'd prefer the logical conclusion that we've calculated instead of rooting for the sports drama to unfold.

The players didn't throw in the towel. The true believer fans didn't throw in the towel and finally got to focus on the positives with new hope. I don't know why there is an industry of people telling everyone else to do that. What's the fun in picking the mathematical time to tell teams to quit? That's more like a job than sports.

It's much more fun to ignore that and just play the games as the Rockies did despite the odds, and feel that this is what sports is all about.

[BigRapidsJackass]

Ahh, but would the ending have been nearly as fun if we hadn't written them off as dead?

[John Cocktoston]

6:10 p.m: The Rockies finish their season on a 13-1 run, catch the Padres on the last day and get a one-game playoff at home. That's just an amazing story, no matter how tomorrow turns out. Today, Ubaldo Jimenez took a no-hitter into the sixth, watched his team fall behind, take the lead, then sweat out Manuel Corpas' shaky ninth inning for a 4-3 win for one...more...day...of baseball.

Much will be said about the collapse of the Mets and the mini-collapse--they were up 3-2 with two outs and two strikes last night, and up 3-0 today--of the Padres, but how about the teams that caught them?

The Rockies, a team I picked to finish dead last in the NL West, played great baseball over the last two weeks, while the Phillies closed 13-4 in making up seven games on the Mets. Again, I think we may overemphasize the order of events, but what's clear is that both the Phillies and Rockies were better teams than they were expected to be, and they remind us that as much energy and effort as we put into analysis, the baseball season is immune to prediction.

----------

I think that's really the crux of the issue. Performance analysis is, by definition, an attempt to predict the future by looking at the past. And although that's valuable, it's only valuable up until something entirely unexpected happens. There will always be a significant number of events in the course of a baseball season that no metric or projection system could ever hope to anticipate. In that sense, it's a little like blackjack.

Going by the book will help you maximize your advantage over the house and, as such, it's always the smart play. But no book will ever tell you to hit on an 18 against a dealer showing an 8 despite the fact that, invariably, you will at some point see a dealer fill in a hand with a 6 and a 5 to come up with 19.

Coming up with a perfect projection system is impossible in both blackjack and baseball. The difference is, in blackjack, everyone accepts that. In baseball, there seem to be some who would claim that they can discern everything there is to know and find some "objective truths" about the game with the right formula. You can't.

[bedir than average]

One must also remember that in the thousands of team/seasons that have been played there are always teams/players that deviate from the averages and regressions.

Be it a single player that defies advanced projection methodology every year (Ichiro) or several teams that dramaticaly over-perform their Pythag and playoff odds (Arizona, Colorado, Seattle). The numbers are a guide to the future, but they aren't set in stone. It is the nuance and the personallity that gives any season meaning, not a mere repetition of an algorithm or spreadsheet.

[hiaspire]

Originally Posted by BigRapidsJackass

Ahh, but would the ending have been nearly as fun if we hadn't written them off as dead?

I didn't write them off, and I didn't enjoy it any less.