Hideo Nomo Has a Posse

Ah, days upon days without baseball that matters. OK, well, it’s only a few days, but far too many if you ask me.

One of the things I spend time on- because I’m a giant nerd- is playing the incredible game Out of the Park Baseball. If you’re not familiar, it’s a very deep PC/Mac baseball simulation game where you take the GM reigns of any given team and build out that franchise. The game gives you every level of minute obsessive control you could possibly care for: setting all of the rosters, lineups, and depth charts for any level of your organization, drafts, etc, etc. You can also go commissioner (i.e. god mode) on the thing and create your own leagues/divisions/etc. It’s crazy. You should buy it and love it.

ANYWAY- I just finished out the year 2010 using the San Diego Padres. Things were going so smoothly- I was well back of the West-leading Rockies (they would end up winning 100 games), but I held the wild card lead until September rolled around and I went something like 2-17 to start the month. Eckstein, Venable, and Blanks spent significant time on the disabled list and my offense sputtered without them. I finished third in the division with a record of 80-82. Totally mediocre.

The off-season was interesting: I managed to re-sign Adrian Gonzalez to a contract he’d never accept in real life: 3 years, $27.4 million: $7.6 in 2012, $8.96 in 2013, then finally $11.26 in 2014. I traded for Danny Putnam because I needed an outfield bat. Finally, I had two excellent 3B prospects in Logan Forsythe and James Darnell, so I worked a deal to send Forsythe to the Angels for Ervin Santana, who I have under contract for the next two years.

Since, like I said, I’m a total nerd, I maintain a site for my Padres simulation. You can check it out here. I work through an entire season in about a month. Currently it’s spring training of 2011, and I’m pretty excited about some of the new talent on board. ¶

Today’s lesson in the general worthlessness of the earned run average: Dontrelle Willis, 1.80 through two starts with the Arizona Diamondbacks. (Corollary point about the worthlessness of the small sample size). It won’t last. The D-Train has a strikeout to walk ratio of 0.5 (walking 10), an incredibly lucky strand rate of 88%, a mildly low BABIP of .276, and a FIP of 5.4 to counterbalance that misleading ERA.

All signs point to a swift and harsh correction, so don’t let the 1.80 fool you. It sucks, because everyone likes Dontrelle Willis, but he’s done. ¶

In trying to reconcile some data at work tonight, I learned something new: a pitcher can be debited with an earned run that does not count as earned against their team. I’m guessing the situation would be a reliever brought into a game where a baserunner made their way aboard through an error (so not credited to the starter or pitcher before). If the new pitcher should then allow that runner to score, he’s charged with an earned run that’s not debited against the team. Odd.

Was looking at the ESPN.com totals for our guys: they have the team total at 191 (lowest in the bigs, I should say) whereas the totals I was looking at (the sum of all earned runs for the players) said 193. So the two in question were charged to someone relieving in the kind of situation I described above.

So the homework, and a million billion dollars to the winner- which 2010 Padres pitcher allowed two earned runs that were not charged as earned against the team?

Also- felt my first earthquake tonight. A 5.7 rattler that caused a brief delay at the Padres/Blue Jays game as the foul poles swayed. Intense. ¶

From the lovely Shorpy.com, Coleman’s scoreboard invention seen here in Washington, DC in 1924, 11 years after its invention. A photograph from behind the scenes:

Everything… was such… an effort… before the… internet! How did we ever make it? ¶

Courtesy of Boing Boing, a collection of anxious surrealist art from Japanese artist Tetsuya Ishida. Completely captivating and sad. ¶