"Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye (I die a little)... So Long Olin Kreutz

After 13 years of snapping the ball for the Chicago Bears offense, Olin Kreutz is considering retirement after rejecting the Bears 1 year offer of $4 million ($2 million less than he made last year). Olin wasn't just a consistent starting center for the Bears, he was also the offensive line playcaller, and the primary leader of the team's offense over the past decade. He was respected and revered in the Bears locker room for his leadership abilities and his overall toughness, playing in more games (183) than any Bear in history not named Walter Payton (184), and the move obviously didn't go over extremely well in the Bears locker room. Bears safety and prolific tweeter Chris Harris summed up the overall feeling among Kreutz's former teammates by tweeting "Olin Kreutz departure won't sit well in the locker room for a few days #realtalk" and "In my 7 yr NFL career Olin Kreutz is the toughest player I have EVER played with #PERIOD"

I think a lot of Bears fans will share similar sentiments, fans have always loved Olin because as Bears guard stated, "He stands for what a Chicago Bear is. Tough. Hard-nosed football player. He made his teammates better." Bears fans love those tough players who will grind it out and play through pain, and this same rationale contributes to the reason that Jay Cutler is generally disliked in Chicago after he wouldn't play through a torn ligament in the NFC Championship game last year. The problem with this rationale is that it overlooks the talent of the player in question. I've always loved Kreutz because he's consistent and fans, coaches, and front office workers have known what to expect from Olin for the last decade. The problem is that the 34 year-old Kreutz has 13 years of NFL mileage on him, and he's not getting any younger or quicker, and primary goals of the Chicago Bears shouldn't be to be the most loyal team in the league, but to win as many championships as possible.

There are times when a player's performance and contributions to a franchise cannot be overlooked, and those players need to be rewarded even if their skills are declining. A couple examples of this idea working out in the proper manner are Derek Jeter's most recent large contract, or more locally, the White Sox continuing to reward Paul Konerko for what he's done for the Sox franchise (fortunately Paulie continues to produce regardless of age). One example of this concept being completely mismanaged is the way Frank Thomas and the White Sox parted ways. Unfortunately Olin Kreutz does not reside in the class of the 3 athletes I mentioned. I will always appreciate Olin's consistency and toughness that he brought to the Bears franchise for 13 years, however his shortcomings shouldn't be overlooked, and the certainly shouldn't cloud the judgement of the front office and prompt them to reward Olin with a crippling franchise. While Jerry Angelo and the Bears front office make a lot of questionable decisions, cutting ties with Olin was not one of them.

Olin was ranked 33rd last year in terms of efficiency among NFL centers according to profootballtalk.com (meaning a backup performed better than he did). Olin called the shots for a historically bad offensive line that allowed their quarterback to get sacked 9 times in a half against the Giants. The offensive line that was supposed to protect Jay Cutler allowed Cutler to get sacked 52 times in 15 games, and the beating that Jay took contributed to his injury that directly affected the Bears exit from the season in the NFC Championship Game against the Packers. Kreutz also allegedly complained about snapping the ball out of a shotgun formation during his tenure with the Bears, limiting their playcalling ability. The Bears never won a Superbowl with Olin manning center and acting as the locker room leader. With all of these things in mind, it was time for the Bears and Kreutz to part ways, and while I wish Olin the best, I was happy to see the Bears agree to terms with former Seahawks center Chris Spencer.

This whole scenario made me question what it takes for a player to essentially gain tenure; what does a player need to do to earn a comfortable contract and the right to play until he decides to hang it up, even if he's a bit past his prime? To me it boils down to a combination of 3 factors:

1. Performance - Obviously a player's performance is paramount to how that player should be received and respected, and it's no different than any profession; if you're reliably good at your job over a long period of time, you will be respected and should be rewarded. Frank Thomas is a great example of this factor, he turned in 16 phenomenal years with the Chicago White Sox and is one of 8 players with 500 career home runs and a career batting average over .300, and he's the 11th player to win back to back MVPs. His performance, among other contributions to the franchise, should have earned him the right to play with the White Sox however long he wanted, at a reasonable salary. Unfortunately things didn't go this way with Thomas, as he and GM Kenny Williams exchanged harsh words before the Big Hurt left for the Oakland A's, and when Thomas said he didn't like how his 16-year run with the Sox ended, Williams fired back by calling Thomas an "idiot." Thomas naturally went on to finish 4th in the AL MVP voting in 2006 with Oakland, but fortunately relations between Frank and the Sox have been mended, as the White Sox unveiled a statue in honor of the Big Hurt on Sunday, but because there never should have been those issues with the performance that Thomas brought to the south side for 16 years.

2. Contribution to the Franchise- This one is a little more vague, but still pretty easy to calculate with a little thought. If you ask yourself "How would this franchise be affected if the player in question never played for this franchise?" and you determine that the franchise would be drastically affected, it's probably a good indicator. For example, Paul Konerko has been the face of the Sox franchise for a decade now as a consistent leader (similar to Kreutz), but Paulie has also backed it up with his performance, and has led the Bears to a World Series and multiple divisional championships/playoff appearances.

2 Guys in the 3k hit club. Glad I found this pic.

3. Championships - This is far and away the most important factor. Paulie gained some slack when he led toe White Sox to a World Series title in 2005, but the best example of this factor is Derek Jeter. Despite the opinion of any scout or sabermatrician that Jeter's skills are significantly declining in the last few years, he was awarded with a 3-year $51 million dollar contract, and it was justified. Jeter has captained 5 different World Championship teams for the Yankees. Enough said.

When you factor in Jeter's performance (3,000 hits, 5 Gold Gloves, one of the most clutch performers in the history of the game), his contribution to the franchise (the captain and face of the Yankees for the last 15 years, in addition to being a model citizen and role model), in addition to the 5 championships, the Yankees did the right thing by overpaying to keep Jeter; the man earned it. Olin Kreutz has meant a lot to the Bears for the last 13 years. However, he hasn't brought any championships to Chicago, and the performance has been not been up to par the last few years. Meatloaf once sang "2 out of 3 ain't bad," but 1 out of 3 won't cut it Olin. Bears fans wish you the best in the future and appreciate your contributions, but it's time to move on.

Aurametrics: Can Musicians be Quantified?

I love baseball. There's so much to love. It combines the athletic abilities of running, throwing, catching, and intricate applications of hand-eye coordination with a cerebral, strategic mind-game that fluctuates from pitch to pitch. Baseball is a sport where excellence is not limited to the physically gifted; there are no height requirements like in basketball, or weight/strength requirements like in football, but as Hawk Harrelson consistently reminds us, "it takes all shapes and sizes to play this game." The uniqueness of baseball doesn't end there, as Ken Burns likes to point out in his documentary and in interviews, baseball is one of the only sports in which the defense controls the ball, and the majority of the action. It is also exclusive to baseball that the players, not the ball, accumulate points (or runs). Not to mention that, like any sport, baseball has a rigid set of rules, however, unlike other sports the actual dimensions of the playing field vary based on the city or stadium in which the game is being played.

None of these fascinating characteristics accurately describes why baseball is my favorite sport though. I will continually be riveted by baseball because it is the ultimate team game, yet it is made up of a series of individual encounters, or "battles" as Jeremy from Sports Night would say. Every play starts with a "battle" between one pitcher and one batter, and what happens next is almost completely determined by the skill of those two individuals. Despite the individuality of this encounter, baseball truly is the ultimate team sport because a batter is only allowed to hit once through a lineup, which results in about 4 or 5 at-bats per game. It's not like basketball where you can go to your best player on the most important crunch time plays, or like football where you can feed the ball to your star RB or throw a fade to your monster WR. I'm sure Tony LaRussa would love to send Albert Pujols up to the plate in every important scenario, hell, I'm sure he'd like Albert to take every at-bat, but baseball doesn't work that way. However, since we have so many individual encounters, statisticians are able to quantify the sport more than any other.

With the technology used these days, we are able to track the usefulness (or lack thereof) of literally every action on a baseball field. Sure, advancements are still being made to analyze fielding (though the UZR and DRS systems are a pretty solid indicator with a large enough sample size), or pitching, but anything a hitter does can be tracked, counted and analyzed to a point that doesn't exist in any other sport. Surf around the Fangraphs glossary sometime, especially the offensive statistics or miscellaneous statistics and you'll find a maniacal thoroughness in their newly invented statistics: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/ Some might find this sort of analysis boring, but personally I love numbers, and I love being able to figure out why or how things happen. This sort of analysis is like brain food for me, it's enthralling and satisfying all at once, and it supplements my love of a game that I already appreciated anyways.

So what does this have to do with the title of this blog? Well, as I mentioned in my inaugural blog post, I'm a professional piano player, and I was playing for a wedding this past weekend. I love playing weddings or parties, or any kind of celebration because everyone is always in a good mood and happy to be there, not to mention that there's always free food and usually an open bar. I'm completely accustomed to people coming up to me after I play at the event and giving general compliments like "great job!" or "the music was beautiful!" to the point that I'm kind of numb to it. I mean, it is my profession, and I take my playing seriously so I practice and prepare so that I will sound good, the same way that I'm sure these people are thorough with any job that they're being compensated for. The difference is that as the song "There's No Business Like Show Business" states:

"The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk

Are secretly unhappy men because

The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk

Get paid for what they do but no applause."

There was one older gentleman however who came up to me and said "I heard you hit a wrong note in there. But you did a beautiful job, everything else was real smooth."

Don't get me wrong, I'm not upset with this man because I always appreciate honesty, and I'm admittedly bored with the same compliments, not to mention I know that I play several wrong notes any time I sit down at the piano and play for a while, almost all of which I assume are unnoticeable to the untrained ear. But his statement got me thinking, Which note was he thinking of? How many notes did I miss, was this the only one? When I perform, what percentage of notes do I miss? What percentage of my mistakes are noticeable to an untrained musician? and lastly, and probably most importantly, Would this ever be worth quantifying?

I realize that this is the exact line of thinking that Bill James had at some point when he pioneered the sabermetrics movement in baseball. I'm sure these kind of thoughts popped into Voros McCracken's head when he developed his DIPS theory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_independent_pitching_statistics The problem is, I don't believe the technology exists (nor do I feel it necessary to devote the time) to gather the information needed to calculate these things, unless someone wants to develop whatever electronic sensors Bugs Bunny used to have when teaching piano lessons (and the student would get electrocuted if he played a wrong note). But, if the technology existed to make aurametrics (a word I made up today meaning the analysis of music through objective, empirical evidence) possible, here are the stats (that I also just invented) I'd be intrigued to analyze:

Note Percentage (NP): This would be very similar to fielding percentage (FP), it's just the percent of notes that are hit correctly. In baseball, a solid FP is around .985 to .995 (or 98.5% to 99.5%), and I'd like to think that professional musicians are in that ballpark (pardon the pun), so out of every thousand notes I'm playing, I'm missing 5-15 of them. Sounds about right, on a good day at least. But similar to FP in baseball, NP could be a misleading stat. FP is deceiving because errors can be misleading since they don't factor in things like defensive range, and the importance of the errors isn't weighted. The latter is the biggest issue with NP, the importance of the missed note isn't weighted. Some missed notes are greater offenses because they're more obvious to an untrained ear than a minor mistake that most wouldn't notice, for example the note that I missed that provoked the old man at the wedding to mention it to me. This would prompt aurametricians to come up with the following stat:

Discernible Note Percentage (DNP): Different than a DNP in sports (did not play), this stat works the same way NP does, except it doesn't measure the actual missed notes, but the number of missed notes that the listener notices. It's more useful than straight NP since the only mistakes that matter are the ones that actually affect the listening experience, but this varies from listener to listener. This variance presents aurametricians with the issue of coming up with a consistent baseline of listeners, a constant test group to compare data against, which leads to the next concept:

Replacement Listener (RL): Based on the idea of a replacement player in baseball, which is a theoretical player who can be signed to the league minimum contract and will perform at that level (i.e. about as good as the best minor league AAA players would perform in the majors). Here's more info about the replacement player compliments of fangraphs: http://www.fangraphs.com/library/index.php/misc/war/replacement-level/ A replacement listener would have the average musical acumen of someone with no musical training, and would have to be calculated through an absurd number of aural tests for average people who have had no musical training. This baseline would lead us to statistics like this:

Discernible Replacement Listener Note Percentage (DRLNP): If I'm playing a Chopin waltz, and my fiance is present, she will be fully aware if I make any mistakes, because she's a professional pianist as well, and much more proficient with classical music than I am, so her discernible note percentage for me will be much lower than probably anyone else in attendance, and therefore not a great indicator of the importance of an error in relation to the average listener. That's why DRLNP would be so important, because some mistakes are inconsequential (like an error where there runner doesn't even end up scoring in a 12 run blowout), but some mistakes are obvious and important. This statistic would accurately reflect the mistakes that I make that would be obvious to anyone even if they don't have any musical training at all (our RLs).

If we're taking into account the importance of a given missed note, it's probably also important to take into account the importance of the situation of the performance too. Like comparing a baseball player's spring training stats to their regular season stats, or their regular season stats to their postseason stats. So here's a few more NP-based statistics:

Practice Note Percentage (PNP): The NP of notes played while practicing, or more specifically, not in front of a live audience.

Live Note Percentage (LNP): The NP of notes played in a performance in front of a live audience.

Of course we can apply these statistics to our replacement listener as we did earlier, giving us the following stats:

Discernible Replacement Listener Practice Note Percentage (DRL-PNP): Just calculating the DRLNP in practice situations.

Discernible Replacement Listener Live Note Percentage (DRL-LNP): Calculating the DRLNP in a live, performance situation.

Using these stats we can see how well a musician can deal with nerves, or how well they perform in a live performance situation. Translated into sports, these stats give us a good feel for how "clutch" a musician is. How else could we determine who the Derek Jeter of music is? World-renowned jazz guitarist Bobby Broom once told me (and I'm paraphrasing) that a musician will probably play to about 80% of his ability in front of a live audience compared to the 100% of his ability that this musician plays at in a practice room, mostly due to nerves. He had no statistics to back this up obviously, because the point was that any musician (or athlete for that matter) needs to over-prepare to be ready to deal with the nerves of a live situation, a circumstance that is difficult to simulate. If aurametricians are able to compile the data needed someday, we'll be able to actually calculate the effects of nerves more precisely, but with this information we could still calculate a pretty fascinating ratio to see which musicians deal with their nerves the best. Here's my final (and most interesting) statistic of the post:

Clutch Note Percentage Ratio (CNPR): Calculated by dividing Discernible Replacement Listener Live Note Percentage by Discernible Replacement Listener Practice Note Percentage (DRL-LNP/DRL-PNP): The hyphens are not subtraction signs, they're just there to make the six-letter stat names easier to read. Obviously the actual names or abbreviations of the stats might need some work since they have a lot of letters and are lacking the convenient abbreviation with a cool ring to it, like VORP or WAR (again, check the fangraphs glossary if you wanna know what VORP or WAR are). For the purpose of simplicity, I'm going to call this stat Clutch Note Percentage Ratio (CNPR) until I come up with a better name for the stat, or until a better one is suggested. 

The name is not strong, but I believe the premise is. This stat separates the important mistakes from the inconsequential ones through the application of our Replacement Listener, and allows us to analyze which musicians are able to perform best when it counts (in a live setting). A CNPR of 1 means the musician performs with the exact same acuity whether practicing or performing. The higher the CNRP is, the more "clutch" (or accurate in live settings) a musician is when it counts. If the number is lower, it means the musician is unable to play up to his/her abilities in live situations, which can be most likely attributed to nerves. I would imagine CNPR of higher than 1 would be rare, as most musicians don't play better when the spotlight is on them, but it would be fascinating to find out. Now, if anyone has any ideas on how to compile the data, I'm all ears...

Talking Box Scores with Rain Man

I'm told that I have certain obsessive compulsive tendencies. Not anything that affects my life too abnormally, but just certain mundane habits and routines that have spawned from my analytical approach to basic tasks, and my love of numbers and routine. For example, I tap my contact case a specific number of times before putting in my contacts (7), I count stairs as I walk up and down them, and I run my toothbrush under running water a certain number times (3 sets of 7 under warm water to soften the bristles, then 7 more times under cold water after the toothpaste is applied).

None of this is interesting to anyone I'm sure, and none of this has anything to do with sports. However, my habit of scanning the box scores of every MLB game every night is a bi-product of my love of numbers and routine, and I believe this particular habit is not just a mundane, slightly obsessive compulsive act. My box score analyzing illustrates all of the action of my favorite sport through numbers, increases my baseball acumen by supplementing the games I'm able to watch, and ultimately enriches my enjoyment of the game.

Enjoying a game that includes such a great visual aesthetic through numbers might not make sense to some, but today I'm fortunate enough to chat with a gentleman who understands what I'm talking about, Mr. Raymond Babbit (more commonly known as Rain Man). I'm joining Ray today at the Walbrook Institute in Los Angeles, and he seems to be receptive to my company, as his brother Tom Cruis... er, Charlie Babbit is busy studying the history of psychiatry, or postpartum depression, or something like that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwAaHbmF5S4

Always double down on 11! Wait, wrong movie.

Anyways, let's bring Ray in on the conversation. Here we go:

Scott Williams: Hi Ray, great to finally meet you, you're movie Rain Man is one of my favorites of all time.

Raymond Babbit: S-C-O-T-T. My main man.

SW: Ray, I seem to recall you're excellent with numbers, based on your ability to memorize large sections of phone books and count cards with your brother in Vegas.

RB: Definitely. Counting cards in Vegas, def.. definitely counting cards in Vegas.

SW: And you're a Dodgers fan right?

RB: Yeah. Go see the Dodgers play. Today's an off day.

SW: I just remember you getting excited about the thought of seeing Fernando Valenzuela pitch.

RB: He pitched Saturday. Not scheduled to pitch till Wednesday.

SW: I'm pretty sure Fernando is retired, but I think he's a Spanish color commentator for Dodgers games within the NL West. Maybe we could go see Clayton Kershaw pitch, he's been Valenzuela-esque, with one of the highest strikeout rates in the league.

RB: Kershaw pitched Wednesday, Ted Lilly scheduled to pitch today.

SW: Eww Ted Lilly.... you're right, we might as well stay home. Well when's Kershaw pitching next?

RB: Next scheduled start in Los Angeles, Thursday July 7 against the New York Mets. Jose Reyes and K-Rod.

SW: Ooh, Reyes is having an MVP caliber season this year with 15 triples through 78 games already, but I'll let you in on a secret Ray, K-Rod sucks. I hate that stupid dance he does every time he records a save, and he beat up his girlfriend's dad last year, which is certainly not something that Second City Chin Music endorses. Anyways, I wanted to talk about how useful box scores can be for fans who wanna stay up to date with what's happening in the MLB, cause it's hard to keep track of all of the games at once. I mean, there's usually 15 games a night right?

RB: (looking at the sky) Yeah. Yeah, 15 games, 135 total innings, 810 outs.

SW: That sounds about right, and that's without extra innings! So if the average baseball game lasts 3 hours, and each team throws an average of 145 pitches per game, than how many pitches are we looking at in a given day?

RB: Yeah. 6 minutes to Wapner.

SW: Ok, I know, I was just curious.

RB: (rocking back and forth) 45 hours, 1 day 21 hours worth of baseball every day. About 4,350 pitches per day... Definitely 4350 pitches....... of course, there's 5 minutes to Wapner.

SW: Can you imagine someone trying to watch every minute of every game? Even if you had 5 TVs, and another game blasting on the radio...

RB: 97X...BAM! The future of rock and roll! 97X........BAM! The future of rock and roll! 97X..........BAM The fut....

SW: Alright Ray, go watch Judge Wapner before I have to take up residency at the Walbrook Institute too.

Anyways, there's some unique things to look for when you're looking at box scores, certain patterns to look for, and an interesting aesthetic value to the visual of how certain performances translate to how the box score looks. This idea has been adapted by former Ohio State basketball walk-on Mark "Club Trillion" Titus, who got his nickname based completely on his standard box score. Since Mark typically entered games in the last minute of blowouts (like Brian "the White Mamba" Scalabrine), and didn't contribute any statistic to the game (no points, rebs, turnovers, etc.) his box score read across like the number one trillion: 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (the number 1 being in the minutes category which is listed first). Mark's blog is great, and I'm following it so you can find it in my profile, but this hilarious video is my favorite thing he's ever put out, and is well worth a watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V6FCitvRUM

Most avid baseball fans try to keep up with all of the activity throughout the league, and normally fans will rely on the highlights they see on ESPN or online. Highlights are great, but you completely miss out on the nuance of the game by only watching highlights. You might see a go-ahead 2 out 3-run HR on ESPN, but maybe you miss out on a couple of clutch 2 out hits to set up the 3-run bomb. And you won't likely see highlights of a dominant save, or a relief pitcher getting out of a jam. All of these storylines can be found withing the confines of box scores if you know where to look: you can tell how much a pitcher was laboring by checking his pitch count, how much an offense struggled with men on base by checking the LOB stat (or a couple of my favorites, the 2-out RISP or 2-out RBI stats). Extra base hits are easily accounted for in box scores, and the often elusive HBP and errors (elusive since HBPs don't count as an at-bat, but a "reached on error" is counted as an out) can be spotted pretty easily too. The point is, box scores can tell the full story about the events of a game in a way that highlights will never be able to. In a sport where a series of individual battles culminate into the ultimate team sport, the way we analyze the skills of the individual players becomes even more essential to understanding the game. This is why sabermetric analysis has been more vital for understanding baseball than any other sport, like basketball or football for example, where the events that take place are much more dependent on context and personnel than on individual ability. The fact that baseball can be so much more precisely measured and quantified than other sport is what makes box scores so relevant and fascinating to me.

ESPN's Jayson Stark is another writer who scans box scores for fascinating lines that will jump out (like when Vin Mazzaro gave up 14ER in 2.1 IP), and for storylines like that I like to check for the crooked numbers, more specifically, who got multiple hits/RBIs/runs scored, etc. They're easy to find with a quick scan through the page as the majority of the numbers in box scores end up being 0 or 1. Also, the box scores keep you in touch with manager tendencies; you can quickly detect batting order changes, and you also get acquainted with how a manager uses his bullpen. There are certain types of lines that jump off of the page, the same way certain performances will be more memorable, like if a hitter has more than one 1 hit, RBI, and run scored (lots of crooked numbers), or if a pitcher has significantly more Ks per IP, or significantly less walks+hits compared to IP. One of these days I'll come up with names for certain box score lines to distinguish them, but that's a blog for another time, especially since Wapner is finishing up. Let's wrap things up with Ray real quick.

I can't tell if this picture was taken in 1985 or yesterday.

SW: Hey Ray, looks like Wheel of Fortune just started.

RB: Wheel Of Fortune. Look at the studio filled with glamorous merchandise. Fabulous and exciting bonus prizes. Thousands of dollars in cash. Over $150,000 just waiting to be won as we present our big bonanza of cash on Wheel. Of. Fortune.

SW: Yup, I just can't believe that Pat Sajak and Vanna White refuse to age. Anyways, let's look into tickets for that Dodgers game, about how much are tickets at Chavez Ravine?

RB: About $100.

SW: Well we don't need to get box tickets or anything, what about just some bleacher tickets and we can move up if there's empty seats?

RB: About $100.

SW: Ah yes, you're not into the whole "money" thing. Well are you still excited about seeing Jose Reyes and K-Rod?

RB: K-Rod sucks.

SW: Oh, I see.