As Opening Day draws near, I am starting to get my stuff together for another season and part of that is tweaking various story templates. I wanted to get some feedback on the series previews.
You can browse through all of them here if you need to, but I am looking for any sort of suggestions anyone might have. This is no guarantee that any changes will be made, but I am interested in what aspects people like, do not like or want to see. SP breakdowns? Lineup breakdowns? Summary stats? More focus on the upcoming opponent? More focus on the Mariners performance in the last series? Discussion of how the rest of the division did?
0 recs | 23 comments
I like the idea of SP analysis.
At least in some cases. Obviously a breakdown of say, CC Sabathia isn’t necessary. But if we’re facing a younger pitcher, or one who has performed against expectations, a breakdown of what the guy’s about would be helpful.
katal - March 18, 2010
Even for somebody like Sabathia
Some kind of Pitch FX breakdown or summary of his most recent few starts or something would be useful. It’s only the top two or so SPs for the Angels and Rangers we’re likely to know backwards and forwards by the time we hit mid-season (I’m not including the A’s because it seems like they have like six different tops to their rotation over the course of a season)
wandergeist - March 18, 2010
I buy what you're saying.
Good points.
katal - March 19, 2010
I enjoyed this feature last year.
Other than maybe more intel on the upcoming opponent I can’t think of any way to improve this.
ThundaPC - March 18, 2010
It would be cool to read about the opponent's starter
For example, his repertoire and what his best pitches are.
Snowman1025 - March 18, 2010
I like this
Ike Clanton - March 18, 2010
Maybe a segment on what you would like to see from the team and best case/worst case
like what you think would be a good, bad or mediocre outcome for the team.
Also, keep the beer previews going for sure
seattlebruin - March 18, 2010
This is easy
Good- win 2 games
Mediocre- win 1 game
Bad- win 0 games
Corco - March 18, 2010
Depending on the amount of work necessary, I'd like to see a "What Makes This Matchup Interesting" feature.
As you’re looking at the other team and their starters and all that, pick something unique or whatever catches your fancy. Sort of like a mini version of what you sometimes write up on Fangraphs when you come across an anomaly. It would be a fun way to continue presenting and exploring the finer points of sabremetrics.
abender20 - March 18, 2010
I was thinking something along these lines would be cool, too.
Like “Jered Weaver is an extreme flyball righty, he’ll get his shit rocked by our more groundball prone, lefty-heavy lineup.”
lailaihei - March 18, 2010 via mobile
The problem with starting pitcher previews is projection/prediction sampling.
The truth is even a very good pitcher has shitty outings, and mediocre pitchers have great outings (Brandon Morrow, I’m looking at you*). I wouldn’t want to focus on that too much because delving into per pitch values or Pitch F/X doesn’t become particularly useful unless you simultaneously look at hitting trends—like a heat map of our line-up’s wOBA in the zone, or better, how well our line-up handles pitch types. This would probably be awesomely useful information for roster construction or pre-season bantering, but for series previews that you write over the course of a week at most, it just seems too much.
I like seattlebruin’s idea above about a brief summary of an ideal series for the Mariners—realistic expectations, let’s say.
It also just occurred to me that it would be really cool to see a sort of park effects analysis. The Rangers in Texas isn’t the same as the Rangers in Seattle, and different park factors may aid the M’s groundballing and speed tendencies (I’d think they’d do very well in Oakland, relying on the cavernous space of foul territory to shoot balls down the line, for example). Thus, a series preview takes into account what location it’s played in, not just the players involved.
To sum up: individual player analysis (like pitcher previews) just seems too much work to ask of you, but big picture analysis and wrap-up would be great.
*I love Brandon. Hated the League trade…but damned if every game after his starting debut wasn’t frustrating as Hell to watch.
harkening - March 18, 2010
Maybe some discussion of park factors for road games relative to the strengths of the team?
OlSalty - March 18, 2010
I would like to see a feature called 'Keys to the Game.'
Where you come up with three fun slogans for each game that relate to ways the Mariners can succeed that night.
BigR - March 18, 2010
This?
Dewey N - March 18, 2010
I think you should recommend locally manufactured heroin that you've enjoyed during the course of your travels
Aaron Campeau - March 18, 2010
Bring back the beer!
I really like the UZR/wOBA/etc. breakdowns you started doing last season. Don’t lose that.
And to echo what others have said, the opposing team’s starting pitchers are usually what I’m most interested in before a series begins. I know that becomes a problem when it’s a pitcher we’ve faced two or three times already and you’ve already covered him to death, but on a lot of occasions there are No. 4 and No. 5 starters we haven’t seen much, and at least some of those guys have some fun quirks that make them stand out from typical replacement-level fodder.
Updated AL West projected standings?
But mostly beer.
Teej - March 18, 2010
I think that discussing the division would be an interesting thing to see.
I like to hear about what other people think about what is going on around the division and those who are in competition with us. Of course if we fall out of it at any point of the season this would become irrelevant.
Kirk - March 18, 2010
As an Angel fan I would enjoy seeing any taped post game interviews with Casey Kotchman.
I really miss those interviews. The way he talks is so funny. Though this is something that would be better in a game wrap up review.
44FAN - March 18, 2010
Make fun of Bill Kreuger's hair more, too.
Jeff Nye - March 18, 2010
I went back and read a few from last year and failed to see where they are lacking.
I do look forward to them though and if there is some meaningful way to expand them I am sure I will enjoy it.
Sec 108 - March 19, 2010
Another thought: We all love the RAA charts you put up. They are a great tool.
Since we see a new one for the Ms with each new series, I’d like to see in the change in run values since the start of the last series. I know you almost always pointed out the larger deviations (I like that), so if would be cool to add a column with the deltas.
abender20 - March 19, 2010
I think it would be nice to include ZIPS projections for each player on the possible lineups so we an idea of the projected talent level of our opponents, particularly at the start of the season to avoid SSS wOBA stats giving misleading forcasts.
EnglishMariner - March 19, 2010
Hey
I was reading the paragraph with your ideas of post topics, and thought all are pretty cool.
I would suggest a little bit of everything. Then as the season goes on it might be more obvious which posts are easier to make and which ones get the most readers…
I always enjoy reading about players trends the previous week or 2 so I can see if they may be hot in the upcoming series or hopefully coming out of a slump, maybe something similar for the opposing teams so we can tell if we are playing opponent during their up or down trend.
fortyniners - March 21, 2010
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