The Dord of Darien

A day late and a dollar short

NL Gold Gloves! I blame Sid Meier.

C: Yadier Molina (TZ: 16, TZ/135: 17, FSR: 19, CS%: 49%)
1B: Albert Pujols (TZ: -2, TZ/135: -2, UZR: 1.5, UZR/150: 1.1, FSR: 8)
2B: Brandon Phillips (TZ: 0, TZ/135: 0, UZR: 9.7, UZR/150: 9.7, FSR: 18)
3B: Scott Rolen (TZ: 3, TZ/135: 3, UZR: 10.6, UZR/150: 12.1, FSR: 14)
SS: Troy Tulowitzki (TZ: 12, TZ/135: 13, UZR: 7.1, UZR/150: 8.1, FSR: 14)
OF: Michael Bourn (TZ: 23, TZ/135: 24, UZR: 17.6, UZR/150: 18.5, FSR: 8)
OF: Carlos Gonzalez (TZ: -2, TZ/135: -2, UZR: -2.7, UZR/150: -3.8, FSR: 10)
OF: Shane Victorino (TZ: 12, TZ/135: 12, UZR: 2.3, UZR/150: 3.3, FSR: 5)
P: Bronson Arroyo (DRS: 6, DRS/135: 33)

This illustrates something that really, really annoys me: see the "OF" selections? They picked two center fielders and a utility outfielder. It drives me completely bullshit that, when it comes to Gold Gloves, people just treat "outfield" as one position. How does that make any sense? The "outfield" is three different positions, guys. The AL Gold Gloves went to one each of those three positions, which was the intelligent thing to do, so I didn’t say anything about it then. But then the Seniors went and messed it all up. Well, in my breakdown, I’m giving out one Gold Glove to each outfield position, and that’s that. As long as I’m revising the history, I may as well revise the process too.

Here goes:

C: Yadier Molina
1B: Ike Davis (TZ: 4, TZ/135: 4, UZR: 10.1, UZR/150: 11.9, FSR: 3)
2B: Chase Utley (TZ: 7, TZ/135: 8, UZR: 10.3, UZR/150: 12.9, FSR: 9)
3B: Chase Headley (TZ: 14, TZ/135: 12, UZR: 16.5, UZR/150: 17.9, FSR: 4)
SS: Brendan Ryan (TZ: 15, TZ/135: 16, UZR: 11.5, UZR/150: 12.1, FSR: 11)
LF: Pat Burrell (TZ: 11, TZ/135: 21, UZR: 4.9, UZR/150: 10.7, FSR: -3)
CF: Michael Bourn
RF: Jay Bruce (TZ: 15, TZ/135: 15, UZR: 20.2, UZR/150: 19, FSR: 9)
P: Jon Garland (DRS: 6, DRS/135: 36)

So, hey, what have we learned today? We’ve learned that nobody played left field in the NL this year — there were like six players who qualified for the batting title at LF. Pat Burrell wasn’t one of them, since he came over from the AL in the summer, but his defense in the 632 innings of LF he did play was worth more to the Giants than pretty much anybody else at the position all year long. I feel a little bit funny about giving a half-time player an award, but, seriously, when he saves more runs in half a year than anybody else does in a full year, maybe that means he deserves it even more, hey?

Basically, left was super confusing this year. It was down to Burrell’s excellent half-year or Matt Holliday, who UZR rates very favourably (8.2 — okay, so maybe "very" is too strong, but you get it) but TZ and FSR are utterly indifferent toward. There were also a few other players who had even less time in left than Burrell but that UZR really, really liked (Gerardo Parra, I’m talking about you), but who barely made a blip on the other two metrics. So, really, it was Burrell or Holliday. I can see a case for either one.

Further research: Burrell is a very odd player. He appears to be absolute ass in the field except for one really good year (this year) and one pretty okay year (2003). Big swings like that make me inclined to be suspicious of fielding metrics — until I remember that Jose Bautista hit 54 home runs this year, which is just five HR shy of his career total through 2009, and that sure doesn’t make me suspicious of the "home runs" metric. Sometimes we have to remember that baseball is an odd game played by real people, I guess, and that random fluctuations can result in a really mediocre player being super good for just one year.

Just ask Brady Anderson!

In non-Burrell news, Carlos Gonzalez clearly has his bat to thank for his Gold Glove. It’s worth noting, I suppose, that his FSR is really good, but both TZ and UZR are negative, as is his DRS. He did, however, make only one error; I wonder if perhaps FSR is biased by "obvious" bad fielding like errors, as opposed to the "hidden costs" of bad fielding — balls a player doesn’t get to, throws that don’t make it on time, and so forth. Things that look like the player did everything right but ultimately cost the team.

FSR is pretty interesting. I’m definitely keen to keep an eye on it; I think it’s suffering from small sample size right now. So feel free to vote on player tools and help a brutha out, hey?

November 11th, 2010 Posted by Darien | Baseball | no comments

Civilization 5

You’ve probably heard it’s out. Came out a month and a half ago. Well, I didn’t get it. See, my plan was, I was going to wait until they got some of the bugs out of it, since, come on; it’s a PC game, of course it’s buggy. Also I figured, hey, I have a lot on my plate right now, and so I’ll play some of these other games instead and wait for the bugs and the price to get a little sweeter, hey?

Turns out that was also a good plan, since, as a professional gamer, I scored a completely free copy anyhow. So, hey, it turns out all these years of swearing at video games on the internet paid off after all!

Nah, I’m bullshitting you. I won it in a contest. Nobody gives me free games for the trash I write. But still: free game! Free collector’s edition, even, which comes with a hardcover art book, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a two-disc soundtrack, and five pewter miniatures. In other words: crazy things. In other words: junk. So what I’m saying is: unless you are positively composed entirely of money, I’d get the regular edition instead, since the collector’s edition comes at a really really steep premium, and probably you don’t really need all those things anyhow. But, if you can get it for free like I did, it’s a nice bonus!

The game itself is ridiculous. Wondering why my NL Gold Glove writeup didn’t make it online yesterday, when the Gold Gloves were announced? Yeah, that’s why. I decided I’d play "a few turns" of Civilization 5 and then do other things. Then it was goddamn midnight. Here’s a brief list of things I did not get done because I played Civilization 5 instead:

• NL Gold Gloves
• Taking a shower
• Getting to bed early
• Playing several other games I’m in the middle of and meant to finish before starting Civilization 5
• Writing

And here’s a brief list of the things my wife did not get done because she played Civilization 5 all day today, which I warned her would happen if she got involved with it:

• Her goddamn cookies

Yes. I noticed.

So far, I really really like it. I’d say it’s a good deal more fun than 3 or 4. Is it more fun than Civ 2, the previous best game of all time? Too soon to tell. I love the streamlining of happiness into a global resource rather than a thing you need to micromanage per-city. Policy trees are super fun, even if they are tinged with a really intense crazy statist bias (what would be a good commerce policy? I know: protectionism! Nothing says "we believe in commerce" quite like refusal to trade!), but, come on — it’s Civilization.

Combat is more fun than it’s been in a while, what with units earning XP and gaining talents and shit. Also it’s nice that you don’t have to waste time and resources fortifying a phalanx in every single city you ever build, since cities now have combat strength built right into them (you can still garrison a unit — one unit — if you choose). The only thing I don’t like about the new combat model is that only one unit can occupy a given square at a time, which is a huge pain in the ass if you’re moving a unit from one end of the empire to the other and don’t want to have to swerve off the road, but you have a garrisoned unit in a city somewhere.

In other news, they changed roads so the optimal strategy isn’t "put roads absolutely everywhere" anymore.

So it’s really really good. You should get it. The boxed version uses Steamworks for authentication, too, which is awesome — not only is Steamworks less ass than SecuROM or whatever bullshit to begin with, but it also means that, once you’ve registered the game, you have a Steam copy and never need to find the disc or the serial number again. So you can buy the box to get the bitchin’ fold-out tech tree and still get all the benefits of having the Steam version. Including HACHIEVES.

And also the Giant Death Robot, which is the best military unit of all time.

November 11th, 2010 Posted by Darien | Games | no comments