Adding One More BCS Rule

Right now, there are two debates raging about the BCS. The first is about streamlining the BCS system and only worrying about a title game. I’m torn on that idea, but really don’t care enough either way to debate at this time. The other is this nonsense about an all-SEC National Title game.

Keeping in mind that being an Auburn grad, I am very pro-SEC , let’s look at the sheer idiocy of this concept.

When matching two teams from the same conference with each other, you aren’t creating anything unique for the bowls. In fact, you are re-hashing a debate that has theoretically been settled. One team is the conference champion, the other is not. Do we really need another game that will bring the title of the conference champion into play? This is even more ridiculous when talking about conferences with either a full round-robin schedule or a Conference Championship.

Which bring us to the other issue, How can you be the National Champion when you aren’t even your Conference Champion?

Think on this for a minute. If you aren’t acknowledged as the best team in your conference, how can you be the best team in the nation? You might be the 2nd best team in the nation, but you should be out of consideration for number one.

I propose adding this simple rule:

Teams that are not recognized as their conference’s champion are not eligible for the National Title Game. Teams with no conference affiliation are eligible for the National Title Game.

The BCS title game should match the best two conference champions, maybe permitting the occasional independent into the game if they are good enough. It is already hard enough to accurately compare conferences without taking away this final test.

One last thought…people might THINK that the two best teams reside in the SEC, but if those teams don’t get one more chance to prove SEC “superiority” against outside competition, how can we be sure?

Remember, the true purpose of the National Championship game is to crown an undisputed number one. Having the SEC champion play another conference champion while the other top SEC teams play other opponents is the surest way to achieve that result.

Ranking Ben Tate Among the All-Time Auburn Rushers

A couple of years ago, I ranked the Top Auburn Running Backs. I thought I would revisit the topic since Ben Tate just completed a solid 2009 campaign and his career at Auburn.

This had been prompted by an online poll and I looked at the results of that poll in a second post. Feel free to look at it.  I’m focusing here on updating my rankings and sharing new thoughts.  I am including all relevant text and commentary from the original post in order try and keep key details together, like the methodology at the end of this post.

So let’s dive into the updated chart.  I used the old numbers and grabbed Ben Tate‘s stats from ESPN’s website.  I also didn’t drop Bostic even though he dropped out of the top 10 for comparison. Note that some numbers are different from before as I was able to get some better stats.

Controlling Baseball Salaries

As you may have noticed, I’m not putting a lot on this site. I have to be inspired to figure something out, or be inspired to write at a time that I actually have time.

That being said, Jason Stark at ESPN wrote an interesting article the other week.  In his Rumblings and Grumblings column, Jason talked about Pushing for a minimum payroll threshold. In it, he discussed how teams get a LOT of money from the luxury tax on salaries.  He then suggested that their should be a penalty for teams that don’t spend a lot of money.

I had thought a lot about that previously and had come up with a system.  Essentially, I think that both the luxury tax, and the related reduction of that cap for “cheap” teams, should be based upon a more statistical measurement rather than some arbitrarily set maximum and minimum. By basing it on the number of standard deviations from the average (mean) salary, the amount would be market based.  This would make the levels change based upon the current spending levels.

The upshot is that if a team maintained a constant payroll, and the average increased, then they would pay less tax, or collect more tax.

Tiger is This Year’s Number One Golfer

Okay.  I know I’m not stirring up much controversy here, but I do have a fun toy to share.  I wrote a couple of weeks ago that Tiger would likely hold the number one ranking for most of this year, but that someone might be able to take it in the last couple of months.

I would like to now take that statement back.  For someone to be a “Challenger” this year, as defined in my last post, they would need to hold the top spot for ten weeks.  That isn’t going to happen.

The Numbers

Still Left On Base

Shortly after my last post on this topic, Derek Jacques posted a follow-up post titled Still Stranded.  I just got to read it today as it is a locked-down article and I’m not a subscriber.  It is a free trial this week, so if you aren’t a Baseball Prospectus subscriber, hurry on down and read it.

Derek looks at several additional methods that were presented as feedback to his article, including my LOBR (R/LOB).  I was pretty pleased with that.  When he compared the results, the correlation of my method, 0.87, using data back to 1971 was highest of those using LOB (or BLOB).  The correlation of TOB to runs was much higher (called BRE in my last post), but that is to be expected (obvious statement #2 from the last post) and wasn’t the point of the original question.  All those numbers for 2007 are in my last post as well as in Derek’s 2nd article, just with different headers.

What is a Good LOB?

The original question in the article Stranded!, from BP reader JP, was:

Does the ‘Left on Base’ Statistic have any correlation to a team’s offensive success or failure?

My answer is simple.  YES!!!  However, just don’t look at the raw number.  Compare it to the Runs.  If the ratio, LOBR, is greater that 2:3 (R/LOB > .67) then your team did a decent job, win or lose.  If they perform higher than that over the course of the year, they’ll likely be in the top half in Runs Scored.

Looking at the All-Star game this year, the score was 4-3 for the American League.  However, the LOBR wasn’t pretty for either team.  The AL had a LOBR of 0.235 and the NL had a LOBR of 0.273.  The NL had the better LOBR, but it was horrible and only a slight advantage.

In a more day-to-day measure, the Braves just played a three game set to the Nationals.  Here are their LOBR stats (LOB).  Guess which games they won.

• Braves 1.400 to Nats 0.857
• 0.250 to 1.000
• 0.545 to 1.250

If you said that the Braves won the first game and then lost the next two to the Nats, you are correct.  In the first game, the LOB is pretty close, as was the score, 7-6.  In the second game, the LOB was the same, but when you look at the LOBR, you can tell that the score wasn’t close.  It wasn’t as it was 8-2.  The third one finished with a nastier score of 15-6.

These games are a perfect example of looking at LOB in context.  By itself, it doesn’t mean much.  When you use Runs, you can then determine if your team is failing to get those runs around.  The Nationals had a higher LOB in two of the games, the big blowout and the one that they lost.  In the smaller blowout, both teams had the same number of runs.  The Nationals were more efficient (1.074 LOBR for the Nats vs 0.625 for the Braves) in the series and won it.

More runners is still key and will always give a better correlation, especially over time.  LOBR will give you instant feedback on how effective your offense was firing on any given day, or for the whole season.

Who Will Be The Next Golf World Points Leader?

I don’t follow golf very much. I usually turn in to the The Open Championship, aka the British Open (love the bunkers). I also tune in when someone is about to do something historic, like Greg Norman challenging at The Open Championship in 2008 or Tiger in a playoff on only one knee.

Which brings us to the big question, who is the next number one? Tiger still holds the spot, even after not playing for a month. The results of the The Open Championship are unlikely to change the leader board, except to bring Tiger closer to the pack.

If you look at the current standings, Phil Mickelson is best positioned to take the spot. I have my doubts about his ability to pull it off. He isn’t doing well at the British this weekend. He cleared the cut by two strokes, but was eight strokes back with a +8. He then hit 6 over the last two days and should finish well out of it.

After Phil, it is wide open. Whoever wants it more can take it, so it will be interesting to see.

A Historical Look

Grabbing numbers of weeks in the top spot, I’ve thrown a little graphic showing the Leaders (most weeks at #1), Challengers (10+ weeks or 2 times at #1), and Notables (at least one week at #1) per year. It isn’t meant to show the best player each year, but to give an indication of dominance in the golfing world.

Left On Base, the Hidden Enemy

Recently, Derek Jacques at Baseball Prospectus wrote a great article called Stranded! It’s focus was trying to determine if the Batters Left on Base (BLOB) statistic for a team was a measure of offensive success or failure. It was a fascinating article. It confirmed some common sense and completely missed the crux of the matter. I sent him a quick note and I will share and elaborate here.

The Top Minor League Organizations

Last month I ranked the organizations based upon some prospect lists out there. It wasn’t complete and had obvious room for error, but it was a quick and dirty approach.

Yesterday, Kevin Goldstein over at Baseball Prospectus completed his ranking of top minor league baseball organizations. I’m going to look at his top 19 (as those are the only ones I can see without paying) and compare them to my list to see how my methodology panned out. You can look at the bottom 15 list as well, the first 4 for free.

Team	BP Rank	My Rank
Rays	1	1
Athletics	2	7
Rangers	3	5
Red Sox	4	3
Dodgers	5	6
Yankees	6	4
Reds	7	2
Braves	8	9
Rockies	9	12
Orioles	10	16
Angels	11	8
Padres	12	17
Brewers	13	13
Nationals	14	15
Cardinals	15	20
Cubs	16	10
Pirates	17	22
Twins	18	24
Diamondbacks	19	14
Mariners	N/A	11
Marlins	N/A	18
Giants	N/A	19
Blue Jays	N/A	21
Tigers	N/A	23
Mets	N/A	25
Royals	N/A	26
Indians	N/A	27
Astros	N/A	28
Phillies	N/A	29
White Sox	N/A	30

Of the ones that are on both lists, all are within 6 spots of my ranking, though the Mariners are already at least 9 spots out. I measured a standard deviation of 3.9 and an average miss of about 3 spots. Overall I would say that the correlation is pretty good. My bottom 6 didn’t crack his top 19 and our top 7 were the same, though with some changed positions. I did note that as things got further from the top spots the greater the variation between the two.

The Braves and Nationals each moved up one spot. No new news, but no bad news either.

The good news for Nationals’ fans is that the ranking for last year was 30. There is room for hope in a few years. They also have a shot a decent, and signable, pick this June with the number 9 slot. Just think, in 2011 they can be fighting with the Braves and Mets.

Why the Difference in the Two?

The differences seem to fall into two major categories. One is that some organizations with a lot of solid prospects, have a backlog at one position. That hurt an organization in BP’s rating system. The reverse of this is of course the organization with solid prospects everywhere. I may be able to modify my methodology to take this into account to a certain degree. Maybe I can give less credit for each subsequent player at any given position. I’ll have to play with it before next year.

The second major reason that some organizations, like the Athletics, have what is a large number of young talent that will be cracking the top 100 next year. Others, like the Reds, are top heavy. After their big guys, things are a little sparse. That is just a weakness to my methodology. If you want quick and dirty, little things will pop-up.

The Best SEC Teams, 1996-2007

So, Doug Segrest of The Birmingham News decided to play a simulation tourney, the SoS Playoffs II, to determine the best SEC teams of the last 12 years. Setting the tournament up like a mini World Cup tournament, he structured it as follows:

• Four groups of five teams each (20 teams total).
• Each group plays a home-home set against each opponent for a total of 8 eight each.
• The top two teams in each group advances to the quarterfinals.
• From there it is single elimination to the finals with each game played at a “neutral” site.

Each game is run using the NCAA Football SimMatchup tool at WhatIfSports. It is a fun little device. He takes the first outcome and then captures the box scores. It only goes back to 1996 in stats, thus the limitation in this bit of entertainment.

As a little disclaimer, I started this post about halfway through the Quarterfinals, so I had no idea of the results when I started.

Recruiting Gone Nuts

This is happening all over, but Auburn just got its first commitment for the 2009 class. The kid is barely through the midway point of his junior year of high school. The only reason that this commitment might actually mean anything is that his uncle is Antonio Coleman, a returning starter on the defensive line.

Family ties aside, this is just nuts. It is also reality and it is only going to get crazier.