Eastern Conference
The Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association is made up of fifteen teams, and organized in three divisions of five teams each. The three division winners are seeded 1, 2 and 3 for the playoffs in order of their record, with all non-division winners seeded 4 through 8. This leaves open the possibility that a #4 seed could have a better record than a #3 seed. On the other hand, home-court advantage in a playoff series is decided by record, not by seeding, so if a #3 and #4 team met in a playoff series in which the #4 team had the better record, the #4 team would have home-court advantage. The Eastern Conference playoffs is divided into three rounds, with the winner facing the Western Conference champion in the NBA Finals to determine the champion. All playoff series are best-of-seven. The current divisional alignment was adopted at the start of the 2004-05 season, when the Charlotte Bobcats began play as the NBA's 30th franchise. This necessitated the move of the New Orleans Hornets from the Eastern Conference's Central Division to the newly-created Southwest Division of the Western Conference. Full Article on Wikipedia
Cheap Relief Arm: Edwar Ramirez
Ah, nothing like cruising around for cheap relief arms with upside. In order to create room for the newly signed Chan Ho Park, the Yankees have DFA’d 29-year-old reliever Edwar Ramirez. You can read the Wikepedia article on the process of DFA, but the meat-and-potatoes lies here:
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Bullpen Management, Do We Give Too Much Credit?
When it comes to evaluating prospects or looking at roster make-up, I’ve always been a little biased against relievers. It’s not that I think all relievers are replaceable, but in the short-term of baseball history, what teams have paid for and what they’ve gotten has been grossly out of proportion when it comes to relief arms. We’ve seen the almighty save stat loose some of it’s luster, but teams generally still spend a good bit on relief arms. Somehow Brandon Lyon got 3 years and $15M from the Astros this offseason.
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Tiger Woods speaks, but golf still waits
In amongst all the promises, the apologies and the admissions, the sporting world learned absolutely nothing about Tiger Woods after he revealed he had no idea when he would be returning to the PGA Tour.Rumours had him returning next week, next month, in time for the Masters, not at all this season or never depending on the source you read, and Friday’s ‘press conference’ did absolutely nothing to stop any speculation about the world No 1’s future.
I’m In The Best Shape of My Life!
Hooray, baseball is back. Well, sorta back. Here’s my annual don’t-worry-too-much-about-Spring-Training post.
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Rentaclub.co.uk – the UK’s first online golf equipment rental service
Rent-A-Club - the UK’s first online golf equipment rental service
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Giants Reach Deal With Lincecum
Our long national nightmare is over. Hot off the presses:The contract is reported to be for two years and $23 million. SI.com reported that Lincecum will receive $8 million in 2010, $13 million in 2011 and a $2 million signing bonus to be split between the two years.
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High Heat vs. Low Heat
Playing around with some PFX tonight. I wanted to plot a graph of fastball height location vs. frequency thrown. I selected Matt Cain and Jeremey Affeldt as comparisons.
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Todd Wellemeyer Signs With Giants
The Giants have signed SP/RP Todd Wellemeyer to a minor league contract with an invite to Spring Training. From the news released on SFGiants.com, it appears the team is tabbing Wellemeyer as a ‘long reliever’ but he could, theoretically, get a chance to win the 5th starter’s job this spring.Wellemeyer’s career stats:
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Winning boring is just fine for Steve Stricker
Steve Stricker moved back to the number two spot in the world rankings after his victory in the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club last the weekend on the PGA Tour.The dependable Wisconsin native led for most of the last three rounds and, unlike early last season, showed a good deal of composure after seeing his six-shot lead cut to two on a couple of occasions by Luke Donald and JB Holmes.
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Fun With Histograms: Saving The Best For Last
Warning: This post turned out much longer than I expected.Playing around with BB-Ref’s great Play Index Tool (PIT) this morning got me thinking about Barry Bonds and his last season in 2007 where he hit: .276/.480/.565 at 42-years-old. Yes, that’s a four-eighty OBP./sigh
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2010 Giants WAR Projection
It’s time for my annual Giants WAR projection post. You can find the link to the 2009 projection, here. It explains a few things in general and it’s not a bad place to start if you’ve never seen a WAR projection. But, the basics are that: a team totally devised of ‘replacement level talent’ — ie: freely or cheaply acquired talent (AAA players, roster cast-offs, etc.) — would win something around 50 games.
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Phil Mickelson urges quick return for Tiger Woods
Recently, fame-hungry individuals have fed the media’s obsession with prying into the lives of celebrities by fuelling speculation about Tiger Woods‘ private life. It’s become such a focus in the press that one could be forgiven for forgetting that Woods is one of the most talented and successful sportsmen in history.It’s therefore refreshing to see one of the player’s closest rivals, Phil Mickelson, express his desire to see the talented golfer back on the scene sooner rather than later.
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Minor News: Jesus Returns
A quick-shot this Friday morning before I get buried under 2 feet of snow.
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Scott McCarron’s not feeling groovy
With Tiger Woods otherwise engaged the golfing world had been looking to Phil Mickelson to provide some early-season success on the PGA Tour, but instead he has found himself in the headlines for the wrong reasons.In the run-up to the Northern Trust Open much of the coverage has involved Mickelson’s continuing use of the Ping Eye2 wedges he has in his bag, which contravene the new ruling with regards to the banishment of square grooved clubs.
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