Pound for Pound

No, not Richard. I'm talking about Canadians and our inability to keep any sort of perspective on our medal count at the Beijing Olympics. It was a long while before we won our first medal, none until Day 8 when we won three, but since then the results have come in pretty fast. As of this post we have thirteen medals, well short of the overall medal leader U.S. (79) and gold medal leader China (43). We're seventeenth overall and this has caused, at least to a lot of people I've talked to in person, a lot of anxiety. "Yeah, but look how many more the U.S. and China have. Our athletes are choking/not funded enough while our government doesn't fund them enough/doesn't fund them properly." Bitch bitch bitch. Honestly. We're a pretty small country, remember? Our population is 1/50 of China and 1/10th of the U.S. and we have around 1/6th of the medals those countries have. We're pretty lucky that we're even able to COMPETE in all the events, let alone win some, given how bloody cold it is here. Have some pride Canadians! Pound-for-pound we're pretty damn good!

But how good, exactly? I was going to let it go, assuming we've done better than most other countries with maximizing our resources, but now I'm curious as to where we stand in terms of medals per population ratio. There's other ways to determine medal efficiency of course, you could look at funding per medal or facility square footage but I don't have those numbers. Looking at population is still a good measuring stick; it basically tells us how much success a given country can produce with the resources they have. It also ignores a countries' spending methodology and simply looks at results, and after we've determined who's done the best with what they have that you'd go and look at how they've allocated their resources. I'll look at the top twenty countries in the current medal standings, which will of course change but I'm interested in this NOW, not in a week, so we're rolling ahead. Also, the medal rankings are done by the number of gold medals, not total medals won, so I just went with that list. I didn't realize that until after I'd done all the copying and pasting, but it's still the official rankings so whatever. The population numbers come from Wikipedia, which uses the most recent census figures.

Country	Medals	Population	Population per one medal
Jamaica	5	2804332	560866.40
Australia	35	21370000	610571.43
Netherlands	13	16408557	1262196.69
Slovakia	4	5379455	1344863.75
Great Britain	33	60587300	1835978.79
South Korea	24	49044790	2043532.92
Czech Republic	5	10403136	2080627.20
France	29	64473140	2223211.72
Canada	13	33351000	2565461.54
Ukraine	17	46372700	2727805.88
Romania	8	22246862	2780857.75
Germany	28	82217800	2936350.00
Italy	19	59619290	3137857.37
Russia	42	142008838	3381162.81
United States	79	304909000	3859607.59
Kenya	8	34707817	4338477.13
Poland	8	38116000	4764500.00
Spain	9	45200737	5022304.11
Japan	22	127433494	5792431.55
China	76	1321851888	17392788.00

China, not surprisingly, comes in a distant last with 1 medal per 17,392,788 people and a big KUDOS to Jamaica for abstaining from their other interests to lead the way, just ahead of the always impressive Australia. Canada finishes in a rather pedestrian 10th place, meaning that relative to the other top 20 countries in the medal standings, we couldn't be more average. So, in keeping with the stream-of-conscious approach to this entry, I've proven myself pretty wrong but won't re-write the introductory paragraph. Still, compared to the two top countries, China and the U.S., we're pretty darn efficient. Compared to some of our little brethren though, we've got some efficientizing to do and so perhaps some of the national complaining has merit.

But it's still pretty damn cold here, so there.

Cy Young

The important thing to remember about keeping a blog is to post something on a fairly regular basis. Not too regular though, then people won't check in all the time. Psych studies show that conditioned responses are strongest when the subject is rewarded in random intervals, and while they might take a little longer to develop, those associations will last a lot longer than if the subject were rewarded each time. For example, if you checked my blog every two days and there was always a new entry, your behavioral pattern would change pretty quickly. You'd immediately see the benefit in visiting the site and would do so on a regular basis. However, if I stopped posting anything and you kept visiting, you'd stop visiting pretty quickly since you'd realize there was no reward. With rewards coming on a regular basis the subject learns quickly but then drops off just as quickly. Yet if you visited every two days and I was posting on a random basis, where sometimes you'd find nothing and other times find two or three new postings, you might take a little longer to develop a long-term habit but would also take longer to stop visiting entirely if no new postings were coming.

Of course, this all means little when I haven't written anything at all, regularly or randomly, in almost two weeks. But things have been busy, so whatever.

More picking on Jays announcers, but this time because they're right and I hate them for it. Let me explain. AJ Burnett won tonight against Detroit, going six innings, giving up four earned runs, eight hits while striking out six and walking one. On August 9th Roy Halladay pitched six and a third innings, gave up one earned run, ten hits while striking out six and walking two. Halladay had the better start of course, a few more hits but three less earned runs, and took a loss while Burnett was credited with a win tonight. In Halladay's start, the Jays made two errors in one inning, stretched out Halladay and making him throw way more pitches than necessary as Cleveland came back and won. Tonight, Burnett and the Jays were down 4-1 in the top of the seventh when Toronto scored four times, added another in the ninth, and got excellent bullpen work to seal the victory. So, who "earned" the decision more? Halladay was let down by bad defense and zero run support (only six hits and zero walks against Paul Byrd, who has a 4.53 ERA this year and a batting average against of .282). Burnett finished six innings, gave up three homeruns (solos, luckily) and left with his team down three. Only because he was the last pitcher in the game for Toronto was he given credit for the win, since the Jays scored four in the very next half-inning to go ahead in the game. Had they scored those runs in the eight inning, rather than the seventh, Brandon League would have received credit for the win and Burnett would get a no-decision. In other words, only by virtue of the offense's timing did Burnett receive a win decision.

Back to Jamie and Pat. I can't remember if it was tonight or last night, but they mentioned how the Jays' lack of offense was costing Roy Halladay wins and as a result could cost him the Cy Young this year. This is so frustrating because it reflects the mindset of so many baseball people, journalists and otherwise. Wins are a terrible way to judge a pitcher's value, as I tried to illustrate in the examples above. If Roy Halladay throws nine shutout innings but Rios drops a ball in the ninth to allow a run to score, and the Jays don't score any runs at all, Halladay gets a loss. If Mike Mussina gives up eight runs in five innings but the Yankees score fifteen, he gets the win. Which performance is better? Pretty obvious. So the fact that Halladay could lose out on Cy Young consideration because of factors beyond his control, such as errors and run support, would be tragically ignorant on the part of the voters.

So, how close is he now? Right now the conversation for best pitcher in the American League comes down to Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Mike Mussina. For a control comparison we'll throw in AJ Burnett's numbers, because he happens to be tied for second in the AL in wins. Here's the breakdown, with AL rankings in parentheses:

ERA: Halladay-2.72 (3rd), Lee-2.45 (1st), Mussina-3.27 (10th), Burnett-4.62 (26th). So a pitcher with a 4.62 ERA can be second in the AL in wins, eh?

Walks and Hits Per Innings Pitched (WHIP): Halladay-1.05 (2nd), Lee-1.08 (3rd), Mussina-1.20 (13th), Burnett-1.44 (31st). Halladay's second in the AL to Justin Duscherer's 0.99, which is ridiculous. Anything around 1.20 is considered "good," so Halladay and Lee are firmly in "excellent" category while Mussina is just "good." Burnett is what we call "BAD." Shawn Marcum, for interest's sake, is actually fourth.

Innings Pitched: Halladay-182.0 (1st), Lee-161.2 (3rd), Mussina-140.1 (32nd), Burnett-157.2 (7th). Some big seperation here, as Halladay has two more starts than Lee and one more than Mussina, but has put up the equivalent of two complete games and change over Lee and nearly five complete games more than Mussina. Suddenly the incremental differences between Halladay and Lee's ERA and WHIP are more substantial, since Halladay's put up very similar numbers in a greater sample size. Halladay also has seven complete games while the next highest, James Shields and Kevin Slowey, are tied with three. The ability to not just be very very good, but also very very durable, is a pretty important factor. It's the difference between Greg Maddux and Jose Lima. You'd take either at their ABSOLUTE BEST, but which one plays for your dream team?

Strikeouts: Halladay-155 (2nd), Lee-128 (8th), Mussina-96 (24th), Burnett-165 (1st). Neither Halladay or Lee are big strikeout pitchers, both use location and try for bad contact, but strikeouts are an easy way to determine how successful a pitcher is on his own, without relying on defense. Mussina's getting left behind...

On-base percentage against: Halladay-.278, Lee-.274, Mussina-.306, Burnett-.339. I didn't include league rankings because Foxsports includes relievers, which are a whole different deal because the sample sizes will be far smaller. Halladay and Lee are basically the same while Mussina is a jump up and Burnett another jump up from that. .339 would be a bad on-base percentage for a batter, but you'd still expect a pitcher with 15 wins to be lower, wouldn't you? No you would NOT, because wins don't matter!

I wrote a long post about AJ a short while ago so it should be clear that I like him, but it should now also be clear that he's a substantial ways behind Roy Halladay. It's only August so there's a long ways left in the season for the Cy Young to be determined of course, but listening to the Jays commentary prompted me to retort and defend Halladay's performance this year. As Burnett piles up the wins and strikeouts he'll start getting mentioned in the Cy Young race as well, great for him, but as you can see right now it's not even close. Halladay and Lee are the class of the AL, Mussina is having a very good year in his old age, and even Justin Duchscherer would be in the discussion if he had more innings because his numbers are awesome. You'd have to give the current edge to Halladay, who has far more innings and strikeouts at this point. So even when you see Halladay stomp off the mound after his team screws him out of a win, know that his team hasn't screwed him out of being the best pitcher in the AL, at least at this point.

Rance Mullinicks and other silly things

Jamie Campbell and Rance Mulliniks seem like REALLY nice people. If I were older and had a daughter who brought either one of them home, I would probably wait until they'd finished cleaning my house and cooking my steak before burying them in the backyard. They're just so bland, if you could listen to pablum it would sound like these two. They're also homers in the worst way, sometimes you need to watch for a good hour to see who the Jays are actually playing, and yet there's something very harmless about it. They're never rude, never rip players or managers for mistakes and seem more like old people in church than baseball announcers. It's baseball Sunday school I guess. If you go to Sportsnet.ca (why not go now?) and check out the selection of blogs kept by the Ryerson grads they employ, you'll see Jim Lang's asinine "thoughts" on Moneyball, Sean McCormick bravely fighting the Good Oiler Homer Fight (bless that boy), Mike Toth fusing his incredibly annoying hyperactive on-air personality with shot-gun topic sentences, pun-filled contrarianism, and out of the mist Campbell's blog that consists of saying nice things and apologizing for others. Disappointingly though, Campbell's latest entry does not end with his trademark "what do you think," as though the internet is full of to-do gentlemen in smoking jackets with British accents politely waiting for their chance to respond. Campbell and Mullinicks are the nicest people in the world, but that doesn't mean they don't say stupid things.

I've wanted to do a live-blog of a Jays game, with Mulliniks rather than Tabler (who, I think, is turning into a very good announcer), but I'm always at work when the games are on. It's becoming a real nuisance so I might not be able to do it at all. The job I mean, the live-blog of Mulliniksianisms is an imperative.

Here's a sample:

"As crazy as it seems, I don't think you have to give in." On a 3-1 pitch to Ian Kinsler, the best hitting second-baseman in baseball, with one out and the BASES LOADED in a one run game. Um, no. You give in and throw a damn strike. Walking in runs is BAD, and given that Kinsler has a batting-average-on-balls-in-play of .336 (over the last 365 days), you stand a 66.4% chance of getting him out by making him put the ball in play.

"[As a baserunner on first, none out] Unless I sense that I can make it to third on a single, I shouldn't go." Sensible. Any specifics on HOW one should decide this? No?

After Josh Hamilton throws an absolute cannon, on the fly from rightfield, to throw out Marco Scutaro trying to go first to third, five minutes of crosstalk occurs between the two about the right way to take third base on a single before Mulliniks bothers to say "And a pretty nice throw by Hamilton." This throw was video-game, cartoon super-hero, what-Roberto-Clemente-must-have-looked-like Good. In other words, the throw was not "good" at all. It was awesome. Just say it. Saying nice things about the other team can be a "good" way to announce games too!

"No disrespect to Hamilton [after choosing Bradley Hamilton over the city of Hamilton in a "Which Hamilton would you choose" contest (wait, WHAT?)], they do have a great football team." Combined record from 2005 to present: 13-47. There are girl's softball teams that are better CFL teams than the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. This one was Campbell actually, guilty of being ridiculous and, again, WAY TOO NICE.

Commercial time. What in the holy hell is the deal with that stupid Rogers' commercial where the two unlikeable yuppies are bickering over whether to get Blackberries for their company? Black Yuppie is on board, it's the cost of doing business, but White Yuppie isn't so sure. Apparently getting a phone means companies need to re-think their caffeine-office paradigm. Why do Blackberries mean the end of the Columbian Dark Roast? What the hell does that have to do with getting office phones? WHO IN GOD'S NAME DOES YOUR BUDGET?

Brad Wilkerson just made a friggin' great catch! Wow! Except that no, he did not, he caught a ball that hit the top of the fence then bounced into his glove. Well sold by Wilkerson, the Jays get a break as replays clearly, CLEARLY show he trapped it and quickly raised his glove for the umpire. Even Campbell comes up with a true-blue, clearcut opinion, pulling a hamstring in the process, and definitively says Wilkerson trapped it. But...

"Even with that replay it's very hard to tell" says Rance, who has not updated his eye prescription since his playing days.

"He just struck the umpire out." I don't know what this means, but Rance disagreed with a ball-four call. He's right, it was a strike, but I just thought it was an odd thing to say.

"Awfully close." Mullinicksian reaction to a replay of Scott Downs picking off Travis Metcalf at first base. Metcalf was very obviously safe. Jays 2, Umpires 0. Campbell, dictated by his BE NICE perogative, says nothing. Hey! One of you two baseball guys! ADDRESS THE CONTROVERSY BEFORE YOU! THAT'S WHERE THE STORIES ARE!

Commercial time, and another one doesn't make any sense. Couple of yuppies running around the house turning off sprinklers, running bathtub water, and ovens cooking a huge-ass turkey. Why? Because they were SUPER YOUNG and VIRILE and SPONTANEOUS and were having S-E-X. Great. Except that Cialis, the product in question that raises said roof, doesn't take effect for four to five hours. And she was making a TURKEY, that's like, what, five hours of work? Their "maritals," I'm afraid, have all the spontaneity of an accounting firm's office supply order meeting.

EMAIL IS JUST $15 BUCKS A MONTH MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!

B.J. Ryan is on to save the game. After blowing last night's game in hilarious fashion, he's SURE to bring the heat this time! Oh, solid single to rightfield on a baloon down the middle. Ryan is pretty big right? Physically, I mean. When he's twirls the ball around in his hand while getting the sign it looks like he's holding a golfball. So why can he only throw 90 mph? If Josh Hamilton really wanted to hit one of of Yankee Stadium at the Homerun Derby, he should've brought Ryan as his pitcher.

Ryan gets the save, due largely in part to getting a called strike three on Chris Davis that could generously be described as a "bloody awful" call. Barajas caught the thing with his catching arm fully extended. Jays 3, Umpires 0. Rance?

"Chris David doesn't like the call." He does not, because if Chris David were right-handed instead of left-handed, he would be on first base and rubbing his bruised ribs. Just SAY IT! No?! Curse you, bland homers.


I think that's a fair sampling of the Silliness on Sportsnet. Just an unwillingness to show any outright opinions of the stickier elements during the game, which I realize is expected from guys who travel with the team and see the players every day. But these were obvious bad calls and while Campbell did at least address the Wilkerson trap neither seemed aware or willing to connect the dots and state that the Jays, overall, really benefited from some shoddy umping (shumping?) tonight.

I felt bad for mocking Nice People so I did some research and realized that Rance was actually a pretty good hitter back in the day. I remembered him at the end of his career when he was the reason Pat Gillick decided that the DH spot shouldn't be a liability anymore, and proceeded to get Dave Winfield for 1992. If you look back over his earlier career though, he put up some very good seasons. When? 1984 was one! .324/.383/.440 with a 124 OPS+. What I can't figure out is how in the world he managed a .440 slugging % when he only hit THREE homeruns all year. Another one? 1988 was probably his best overall, hitting .300/.395/.475, 143 OPS+, 12 HR's and 48 RBI's. Those are some excellent on-base percentages by the way (.383 and .395), that basically means he got on base 40% of the time. I guess when he says Rios should keep his damn hands in he's not talking out of his ass.