Game Score calculated.

Not being able to find a good database for game scores, I figure out a way to create one myself. Here is the average game score (AGSc) along with games started (GS) for the Jays' starters this season:

	AGSc	GS
Marc Rzepczynski	67.00	1
Roy Halladay	60.24	17
Ricky Romero	57.17	12
Scott Richmond	55.00	13
Robert Ray	48.50	4
Brian Tallet	48.06	17
David Purcey	41.00	5
Brett Cecil	40.29	7
Jesse Litch	37.00	2
Brad Mills	25.00	2

I have also created a database for a number of notable pitchers in the league. I used pitchers who had low ERAs, high Ks, high Ws and high QSs, and also included pitchers making the big coin.

1	Dan Haren	66.65	17
2	Tim Lincecum	64.89	18
3	Zack Greinke	62.78	18
4	Chris Carpenter	62.67	12
5	Felix Hernandez	60.94	18
6	Javier Vazquez	60.56	18
7	Roy Halladay	60.24	17
8	Yovani Gallardo	60.12	17
9	Matt Cain	59.82	17
10	Josh Johnson	59.39	18
11	Chad Billingsley	58.50	18
12	Jered Weaver	58.24	17
13	Justin Verlander	57.56	18
14	Adam Wainwright	56.89	18
15	Jake Peavy	56.69	13
16	Wandy Rodriguez	56.33	18
17	Johan Santana	56.29	17
18	CC Sabathia	55.94	18
19	Mark Buehrle	55.76	17
20	Josh Becket	55.41	17
21	Jair Jurrjens	54.94	18
22	Carlos Zambrano	54.40	15
23	Kevin Millwood	54.22	18
24	A.J. Burnett	54.12	17
25	Roy Oswalt	54.11	18
26	Dallas Braden	53.76	17
27	Doug Davis	53.67	18
28	Jon Lester	53.65	17
29	Nick Blackburn	53.53	17
30	Joel Pineiro	53.29	17
31	Cliff Lee	52.89	18
32	Jason Marquis	52.24	17
33	Ryan Dempster	51.76	17
34	Barry Zito	50.71	17
35	Tim Wakefield	49.53	17
36	Kevin Slowey	47.63	16
37	Derek Lowe	47.44	18
38	Bronson Arroyo	45.00	16

Interesting to see pitchers like Cliff Lee and Timmy "Lob Ball" Wakefield scoring so low in this category.

If there's anyone you'd like to me add to the list, let me know.

UPDATE: Added to following players, so now the list contains the 15 top paid starters this season:

Jake Peavy

Roy Oswalt

Ryan Dempster

Chris Carpenter

Bronson Arroyo

An interesting stat by which to rate starting pitchers

Rating the skill of a starting pitcher is very subjective. Many people look at the big three—Wins, ERA and Ks—in order to get an idea of how well a pitcher is doing. The clear problem is that wins are very reliant on the team as a whole. Also, a pitcher can record a high number of Ks, but still allow long balls, walks, run, et cetera. ERA is a bit better, but a starter can have a low ERA but not go very far into games, which would be an asset for any starter.

There's also the Baseball Writers of America system, whereby they use a random number generator to choose the best pitcher in the NL and AL at the end of each season.

I've always found Quality Starts (QS) to be a good way of rating a pitcher's performance, it has nothing to do with his team's performance but focuses only on a pitcher's performance and ability to go at least six innings into a start.

Recently, I read about a very interesting stat: Game Score. Game Score is designed to measure a starting pitcher's dominance over the game. It's much more in depth than QS, making it more complicated, but it takes a lot more into account. A pitcher starts the game with a "score" of 50. Points are then added or subtracted:

+1	Each out recorded
+2	Each inning completed after the 4th
+1	Each strikeout
-2	Each hit allowed
-4	Each earned run
-2	Each unearned run
-1	Each walk

Therefore, a high GS is good and a low GS is bad. Unfortunately, I can't find any database information for the GS of individual pitchers over the season, but FYI, the Jays currently sit 13th in the league with an average GS of 50.0 dead on. The Giants lead the majors with 54.6 and the Indians are bringing up the rear with 44.3.

UPDATE:

Today Halliday had a GS of 55; Price had a GS of 62.

I'm going to try and keep track of the GS for Jays' pitchers after each game.

The Mendosa Limbo: how low can you go?

The brooms were out in Tampa Bay today as Halladay couldn't stop the sweep. The ALE has taught the Jays a lesson over the past two series and they're 2-8 over their last 10. The Jays now sit 9.5 back of Boston, 9 games back of the second place Yankees and 4.5 games behind the Rays to sit in 4th place in the division. Before the season started, in no way did I expect the Jays to be playoff contenders. Although, April and May did give me so hope that they wouldn't be this far back a week before the All-Star Game—here we are.

No matter what, I'll always be a Jays' fan and I'll watch as many games as I possibly can. The question is, at what point do we dedicated fans neatly file away our hope under 2010? I am personally setting the "Jays' Mendosa Line" at 10.1 GB: if the Jays at any point get to over ten games back, I will officially lose hope in a good season. By "good season" I mean hope that come September, the Jays will be flirting with a wild card spot. They don't have to be in the wild card spot, I just want a little drama—4 games out would be just fine.

Alright, so when the Jays reach the > 10 GB milestone, then what? I'm throwing my hope toward another team. The question is, what team? Well, it sure as hell won't be anyone from the AL, which leads to the NL. Allow me to very quickly eliminate a few teams: Not the fucking Cardinals, because fuck them; not the fucking Dodgers, because that team shits in the same toilets as Manny "my balls are tiny" Ramirez ; and not the fucking Philles because of '93. So there go the current division leaders. I'm not jumping on some retarded bandwagon.

I obviously don't want to start cheering for a team that's in a situation like the Jays, which eliminates a few more teams: Washington (duh), Pittsburgh, Arizona and San Diego. Of the teams are left, I've narrowed it down to three: The Cubs, The Astros and The Mets. Why?

The Mets (40-43)—They've got a really solid team. Question is, are they going to get healthy soon enough? With Delgado on the long term DL and Putz, Reyes, and Beltran on the short term DL, they're missing a good chuck of change. Sitting at 4.5 back of the Phillies in the NLE, they're in tough, but they still have a very legitimate chance of the division or the WC.

The Cubs(41-41)—There's something about their starting rotation. I really like Zambrano; he's done wonders for me in my fantasy league. Former Jay Ted Lilly is having a great season in the number two spot. Rookie Randy Wells is having a great season. Rich Harden is probably their worst starter and is having a very inconsistent season (dropped the son-of-a-bitch from my fantasy team), but he could straighten out at any time. They currently sit 3.5 back of the division leading Cardinals.

The Astros (41-43)—Having starters Roy Oswalt and Wandy Rodriguez, closer Jose Valverde, and position players Michael Bourn and Miguel Tajada on my fantasy team, I've taken advantage of the mlb.tv feature which allows me to switch to games when my players are hitting or pitching. So, over the past few weeks, I've taken in a lot of Huston Astros baseball. They are just simply fun to watch: they've got power, speed and pitching. It's great baseball. They currently sit 4.5 back of the Cardinals in the NLC

For now, I'm not really leaning more toward any of the three. I'm going to continue to watch them on mlb.tv and see how they do.

It really fucking pisses me off to think that if they Jays were in the NLE or NLC as my above group of three, they'd be in serious contention for the post season. Fuck you Bud Selig.

That's one big fucking $15 million mozza ball

I missed most of the Jays' game yesterday, as I got home from work at around 9:30 ast. As soon as I got home, I immediately turned on the ball game and logged onto mlb.com. My eyes went wide as I saw the news, " Blue Jays release struggling Ryan; I just about shit a fucking brick. I then proceeded to dance around the apartment praising God, Jesus, Alla, the fucking devil; basically anyone who'd fucking listen—Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead!

So it cost them $15 million? Finally, money well spent I say. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when interim president and CEO Paul Beeston had to walk into the Rogers' executive offices and ask for the money:

Beeston: So yeah, I'm going to need some money.

Rogers: Did Jose Bautista kill another group of strippers again? Fuck—he really has to stop doing that.

Beeston: Well yeah, but we're just blaming that shit on Mulliniks now. But seriously, we're going to need $15 million and fast.

Rogers: ...

Beeston: Remember when we made BJ Ryan the highest paid reliever in the League? Yeah. Not working out so well for us. We'd really like to get him the fuck out of here.

Rogers: Cash or cheque?

$15 million to send Ryan packing, that's a fucking bargain at double the price. Christ, I'd lick the inside of his jockstrap too, if that's what it took.

Reading what the club management had to say about the release is goddamn priceless. They called him the "12th man on the pitching staff. Gaston also said that he had been considering using Ryan only in "blowout situations." No shit. Considering Hayhurst has been doing well and Downs's boo-boo on his big toe (read as yeast infection in his massive vagina) is now all better, what options did they have?

Best day ever.

Rzepczynski - Zep-chin-skee

Rzepczynski—a 40 point word in scrabble given no bonuses—made his Major League debut last night against the Tampa Bay Rays; the kid was impressive. He went 6.0 innings allowing only 1 run on two hits. He also K'ed 7 but gave up 4 walks. His biggest test came in the 4th inning, where he walked two batters and gave up a single to load the bases with two outs. The only run given up by Rzepczynski came at this point when we walked Kapler to score Pena. With the bases still loaded, he pitched very well to Navarro, eventually getting him to ground out (6-3) to end the inning.

The bottom of the 4th showed that the kid has some guts: He got himself into trouble walking Pena, Bartlett and Navarro, but stayed composed and got himself out of the inning with little damage done. Seven strike-outs over six innings is definitely Big League worthy, but it will be interesting to see how professional hitters adjust as more scooting reports come in. He threw a total of 106 pitches, but only 62 strikes; control was definitely a issue throughout the outing, but the kid was probably struggling with nerves. Handshakes came from all around after the 6th as the kid was replaced by Camp in the 7th. He sat in the dugout with a smile beaming from ear to ear knowing that his first Big League start was a good one. Unfortunately, the Jays hitting couldn't get him the win.

The highlight of the game came in the top of the 8th when Scott Rolen singled to centre-field, extending his hit streak to 24 games and scored Scutaro from 3rd in the process, which eventually forced the game into extras. Shawn Camp pitched 3 no hit innings, with a strike-out and a walk. Unluckily for Brandon League, Burrell got a hold of a good pitch in the bottom of the 11th, ending the game with a two-run walk-off to the gap in left-centre.

My complete scorecard can be found here.

A disappointing loss for the Jays who now slip further into oblivion and sit 8 back of Boston for the division lead and 7 back of the Yankees. Do the Jays have a chance at making the post season? Not with how great The Sox and The Yanks have been playing over the past month. But, it's really in their hands. With a lot of inter-divisional games left to play, anything can happen.

I still have hope, I think.

Scoring, round 2.

Last night I made a second attempt a scoring a ballgame during the series finale between the Yankees and the Jays. My scorecard can be found here. I used a different card that was much more detailed and I included hitting charts for each at bat. Last night's attempt was better than my first, but I did make one small mistake. This particular scorecard included pitch counts for each pitcher in the form of strikes-total. I mistakenly did not score each hit toward the pitcher's strike count, as it should have been. So, on my card, strike counts for the starters are off, but I did start scoring properly for all relievers.

There were a few things that I didn't like about the card: my entries for pitch counts were in a much too small font and were incorrectly placed for triple digit numbers; and the pitcher statistics did not include hits allowed or runs (earned runs was on there but I find it interesting to see how many runs crossed the plate while a particular pitcher was on the mound as well). I modified the card to fix these issues and I also added a 'game stats' and a 'game notes' section at the bottom of the score card; the former to include things like team records, winning, losing, and save pitchers; and the latter to include additional information about the game, e.g ejections, balks, et cetera.

Going to try the new card out for tonight's game. Hopefully the R and ER entries are large enough for Rzepczynski.

Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again.

Yesterday, in an attempt to seek a replacement for Danny Heatley, the Ottawa Senators signed unrestricted free agent Alexi Kovalev to a two year $10 million deal. Despite the rally waged by Canadiens fans on Sunday, Bob Gainey decided to not even negotiate a new contract with the right winger.

Good fucking riddance.

Kovalev has some type of magical power that makes people not care that he's a fucking bum. News flash, Kovalev is a fucking bum. Alexei Kovalev is a brilliant hockey player—27% of the time. Alexei Kovalev is the most skilled player in the NHL—if you don't count 73% of games where he's more useless than tits on a nun. Alex Kovalev brings veteran leadership to the dressing room—if you don't consider his lack of heart, tenacity, and dedication.

My favourite Kovalev moment had to be in the '04 playoffs when he was slashed by Travis Greene, grabbed his wrist like he'd been shot, proceeded to then run into Sourey creating a breakaway on which Boston scored and eventually won the game. Not the first time Kovalev feigned and injury in the playoffs:

Happy trails to you number 27. Take your $10 million to the bank.

Jason Frason explained

Jason Frasor stared the season as the Jays' best and most consistent relief arm. Through April and May, Frasor boasted a minuscule ERA, a very respectable WHIP and rock-solid dependability. However, Frasor's numbers began to slide around the end of May and have continued on a downward trend.

This was very puzzling to me, so I decided to do some research. I believe the key to Frasor's demise is best illustrated in graphical form:



I have concluded that Jason Frasor's collapse can be directly correlated to being picked up by team Neverland Lost Boys (by owner Joseph Van der Jagt) on May 20 in my fantasy baseball league. In a league that rewards innings pitched, wins, and saves, Jason Frasor had no idea how to contribute. This confusion clearly lead to Frasor's performance plummeting into oblivion. There was one bright spot; an injury to Scott Downs gave Frasor a glimmer of hope: he could contribute in the save category. This bliss was short lived, as Frasor realized he was by no means a closer.

Fuck you Van der Jagt; it's science, and you can't argue with science.

Scott Rolen got fucking ripped off

It's that time of the season in Major League Baseball when fans act like Major League Douchebags—that's right, the all-star team selection. It's that time of year when the Hollywood players (e.g Derek Jeter) make the team regardless of current season stats and performance. Although, offensively Jeter is having a good season. Lucky for him it seems like the all-star selection process in no way takes into account defence, which for every player but pitchers comprises of one-half of his performance.

Now, I know that there are many players who get the blind-eye from the fans each year, but this year's selections at third base really pissed me off: How did Scott Rolen not get the nod? Instead, Longoria was selected in a landslide and Michael Young was selected on the reserve roster. Well, fuck the fans for selecting Longoria and fuck Major League Baseball, fuck the Major League Baseball Player's Association, fuck the players, fuck the coaches, fuck the owners and especially fuck Bud Selig—like every atrocity to hit baseball since '92 I'm sure he had something to do with this one too.

Let's take a look at the vote:

1	Evan Longoria, Rays	4,315,210
2	Alex Rodriguez, Yankees	2,350,496
3	Mike Lowell, Red Sox	1,759,195
4	Michael Young, Rangers	1,741,982
5	Brandon Inge, Tigers	891,112
6	Scott Rolen, Blue Jays	850,033

First off, fuck everyone who voted for A-rod; his 0.240 average is really doing my fantasy team wonders. Mike Lowell is a fucking bum and he's now injured—karma. Michael Young is a fucking bum; I was at a game when we threw two balls over the head of the first basemen on routine plays. Fucking Brandon Inge? What a fucking joke.

Let's take a look the raw statistics. Compare Rolen to the two pieces-of-shit selected to the AL team:

Rolen

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
72	268	44	88	24	0	6	30	24	31	4	0.328	0.389	0.485

Longoria

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
78	286	45	83	25	0	16	64	34	73	2	0.290	0.369	0.545

Young

G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	SB	AVG	OBP	SLG
77	315	45	99	26	1	10	33	30	53	4	0.314	0.373	0.498

Good for Longoria and his 64 RBIs; I'm sure that does something to offset the K-train he's been riding all season long—choo choo. One could argue, and I really stree could, that Rolen is slightly lacking in the power department over Logoria and Young. But, come on! He's been flirting with the Major League's number 4-5-6 spot for average all season. The man is a 7 time gold glover! Cito Gaston said he made the best play he has ever seen from thrid-base. What more do you want?

The man deserves to be at the show, and fuck you if you think otherwise.

(An honourable mention has to go out to Marco Scutaro. With the Jeter lock on the SS position, a 4th place finish in voting in his first legitimate season is well-deserved. For those of you who care, Jason Bartlett, who's having a stellar season in TB, was selected on the reserve squad at the SS position)

For those of you keeping score at home...

I decided to take those famous words uttered by Jamie Campbell to heart and attempt to keep score during yesterday's game featuring the Jays at New Yankee Stadium. First off, a copy of the scorecard can be found here.

I read up on the basics of scoring, found a decent scorecard online and sat down in front of the game with my laptop. Scoring the actual game wasn't too bad at all. There were a few instances when I had no idea what the fuck was going on, and I had to revert to the sports.yahoo.com boxscore for some help. One major mistake that I made was giving Yankee starter Chamberlain 7 earned runs instead of three on 8 runs scored) due to an error committed by third basemen Ransom; a sharply hit grounder by Rios was mishandled by Ransom, allowing Rios to first and Overbay to advance to second on an E5. At the time there was one out, so should the play had been made by Ransom—the ball was hit well enough for the 5-4-3 double play—the inning would have ended. The Jays proceeded to score 5 runs that inning, all of which were unearned because of the error. I incorrectly only scored the Rios run as unearned, my logic being that he should ot have been on base because of the error. The official ruling was that ALL runs score after the error were unearned—another example of how baseball is more fair than life itself—because the inning should have ended.

All-in-all, I'd say the scoring experience was interesting. I spent a lot time trying to sort things out: with the scorecard I was using; getting used to the rules of scoring; getting used to the abbreviations used... Although I was forced to watch the game more intensely, it seemed like I wasn't watching the game as closely as I normally would. It was a fun experience, and I'm going to try it again for today's series finale. I found a new scorecard that is slightly more detailed and I spent a considerable amount of time modifying it last night to make my life a lot easier, which should allow me to watch the game a little more closely.

We'll see how it goes...