ESPN Coverage (2012)

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Beats barbecuing them like a would be owner.

[Minty Fresh]

I flipped on baseball tonight for abit last nightout of curiosity. Noticed Francona and Nomar were the analysts and that they spent what seemed about 15 minutes on the Red Sox andBobby V. Then they started talking about the Mets. They are really a regional network and should be treated like one. I flipped it off when they teased the Nats coverage with a comment about only 16k showing up to see Strasburg. It's all NY, Boston, and stars to them. It won't change. MLB Network is the crap.

Beyond baseball coverage, between the NFL, NBA,  NHL Networks, the Golf Channel and now the major networks (Fox, CBS and NBC) all creating their own sports networks, there really is no need for an all-encompassing sports network like ESPN.

Good riddance.

[HalfSmokes]

The best thing they have going is that espn.com is easier to type than sports.yahoo.com

[MarquisDeSade]

Beats barbecuing them like a would be owner.

Hey, that's a delicatessen in some places!

[PC]

Posted purely as FYI:

[KnorrForYourMoney]

Posted purely as FYI:

You mean it's not the height of insult?

[Squab]

They're on the Sports Illustrated page. Also just FYI. Little more fair.

[PC]

You mean it's not the height of insult?

How can it be? It happens every day.  I can't be insulted every day.

[Coladar]

So how does ESPN do the playoff likelihood percentages? We have a 46.9% chance, according to them, at 9-3. Philly is in the bottom of the NL East, tied with Miami at 5-6, and has a 70.8% chance. Miami, the exact same record, has a 11.3% chance. They have to, I'm guessing, factor in last seasons performance, but still, Wtf? We have a 46.9% chance at 9-3 and Philly has a 70.8% chance at 5-6? Lolz. What a joke. We aren't even at 50-50 odds to be in the playoffs, but Philly is a near lock despite imploding so far? What a joke.

[Sharp]

So how does ESPN do the playoff likelihood percentages? We have a 46.9% chance, according to them, at 9-3. Philly is in the bottom of the NL East, tied with Miami at 5-6, and has a 70.8% chance. Miami, the exact same record, has a 11.3% chance. They have to, I'm guessing, factor in last seasons performance, but still, Wtf? We have a 46.9% chance at 9-3 and Philly has a 70.8% chance at 5-6? Lolz. What a joke. We aren't even at 50-50 odds to be in the playoffs, but Philly is a near lock despite imploding so far? What a joke.

Would you disagree with that assessment?  I think it makes a lot of sense to weight a large sample past performance heavily above like 11 games.

[Coladar]

Would you disagree with that assessment?  I think it makes a lot of sense to weight a large sample past performance heavily above like 11 games.

I don't disagree with the Nats at 47% so much as the Phillies at 71%. I think even only 11 games in, 71% is overly generous to the Phillies considering their season so far, their chances, their roster, etc. You think Philly is a near playoff lock playing under .500 ball so far? I just think its being overly generous while at the same time shorting a team at 9-3 atop the division and #2 in the entire league at this point, accepting we are only 11-12 games in.

[cmdterps44]

So how does ESPN do the playoff likelihood percentages? We have a 46.9% chance, according to them, at 9-3. Philly is in the bottom of the NL East, tied with Miami at 5-6, and has a 70.8% chance. Miami, the exact same record, has a 11.3% chance. They have to, I'm guessing, factor in last seasons performance, but still, Wtf? We have a 46.9% chance at 9-3 and Philly has a 70.8% chance at 5-6? Lolz. What a joke. We aren't even at 50-50 odds to be in the playoffs, but Philly is a near lock despite imploding so far? What a joke.

Well to be fair, the season is really freakin long

[Sharp]

I don't disagree with the Nats at 47% so much as the Phillies at 71%. I think even only 11 games in, 71% is overly generous to the Phillies considering their season so far, their chances, their roster, etc. You think Philly is a near playoff lock playing under .500 ball so far? I just think its being overly generous while at the same time shorting a team at 9-3 atop the division and #2 in the entire league at this point, accepting we are only 11-12 games in.

I personally would be pretty surprised if the Phillies missed the playoffs, so I don't think it's unreasonable.  Their pitching is still great and their hitting is unlikely to stay this anemic all year.  They won 102 games last year.  For them to go from that to missing the playoffs wouldn't be unheard of, but definitely an upset.  On the other hand, would I be surprised if the Nats missed the playoffs?  Not particularly--though I think they have a pretty good shot with the current wildcard structure.  The percentages sound about right to me.

[Coladar]

I personally would be pretty surprised if the Phillies missed the playoffs, so I don't think it's unreasonable.  Their pitching is still great and their hitting is unlikely to stay this anemic all year.  They won 102 games last year.  For them to go from that to missing the playoffs wouldn't be unheard of, but definitely an upset.  On the other hand, would I be surprised if the Nats missed the playoffs?  Not particularly--though I think they have a pretty good shot with the current wildcard structure.  The percentages sound about right to me.

I agree, Philly is unlikely to miss the playoffs. I guess I just take issue with the weighting of previous years records... For Philly to be at 71% under .500 and the Nats at 46% at what, .750, just seems a bit much. Yeah, basic logic indicates Philly is likely to make it, but I think my point is I would rather have all the teams a lot closer at percentages than weighting it so much that Philly is several games back and yet 25% more likely to make the playoffs. Have all the teams closer together than that, this early into the season, instead of weighting so much based on last year. It doesn't even make sense in some areas... Texas has a 90+% chance, great. But LA has a 40% chance, in the same division, despite being dead last in the division and 5 games back. Yet Seattle has a 9% chance, second in the division, and 1.5 games ahead of LA.

In most cases, ESPN is dead on with what I'd agree with, so it mostly works out. But I just take issue weighting the Nats down so much based on last year, and Philly ahead so much, when we are first and they are last place. It's only 12 games in, but I'd just rather everyone in the NL East be closer to 50% still than giving Philly a 25% advantage over the Nats when Philly is dead last. It's even worse when you consider the AL West and LA's 40%, which is almost entirely wild card since Texas is a near lock. Like I say, logically, there's not a ton to disagree with, but this shows just how much weight they are giving last year, which I'm not sure I agree with. I'd rather everyone be bunched together still, than a team dead last still a near lock to make the playoffs.

[Tyler Durden]

Not sure if this relates to the above discussion, but the Nats are 6 games above .500 with 150 games left.  If they go 75-75, they'll end up with 84 wins and 78 losses.

If we can take two more from the Astros and then go .500 for the rest of the year, we'll end up 86-76.

[spidernat]

3 stories about the red sox. As Minty said, ESPN is a regional network that is mostly interested in covering the yankees and red sox.

[HalfSmokes]

then don't watch it

[Kevrock]

How can it be? It happens every day.  I can't be insulted every day.

Every loss is our worst loss ever. 

[Lintyfresh85]

Every loss is our worst loss ever. 

I liked when someone called him the 50 First Dates of baseball. Every game and every loss is the first game/loss he's ever seen.

[Kevrock]

I liked when someone called him the 50 First Dates of baseball. Every game and every loss is the first game/loss he's ever seen.

I said the latter, and someone posted the picture of 50 first dates. I wish I remember who posted the picture.

[spidernat]

That happened the last time Zimmermann pitched and PC was saying Zimmermann deserved the loss because Arroyo got an RBI off of him. ZNN pitched 7 innings and only yielded one run. 

[The Chief]

I'll be honest, I halfway expected it to say the Rangers got to 10 first:

[The Chief]

^^^So how does one explain that with popularity algorithms?

[tomterp]

So how does ESPN do the playoff likelihood percentages? We have a 46.9% chance, according to them, at 9-3. Philly is in the bottom of the NL East, tied with Miami at 5-6, and has a 70.8% chance. Miami, the exact same record, has a 11.3% chance. They have to, I'm guessing, factor in last seasons performance, but still, Wtf? We have a 46.9% chance at 9-3 and Philly has a 70.8% chance at 5-6? Lolz. What a joke. We aren't even at 50-50 odds to be in the playoffs, but Philly is a near lock despite imploding so far? What a joke.

Here are BP's odds, which are based on PECOTA projections for player performance through the end of the year, then run through a Monte Carlo simulation of the rest of the season being played out 1m times.  For the NL East -

Phillies - 58.5%
Marlins - 49.6
Braves - 42.4
Nats - 20.0
Mets  - 7.2

Note they aren't placing too much weight on the performances to date due to small sample size.  But the longer we keep it up the longer we climb.

And I do remember last season they had the Red Sox at about 99% with a month to go in the season.     

[MarquisDeSade]

^^^So how does one explain that with popularity algorithms?

Matrix decomposition.  I'm not even bullcrapting.