2013 D-II Central Regional Preview

March 13, 2013 Leave a comment

Introduction

Going back to the old days of writing about Harding basketball, I present a statistical preview of the 2013 Central Regional section of the NCAA D-II men’s basketball tournament, which starts Saturday in Mankato, Minnesota.  The Bisons are not exactly favored, nor should they be, but this was interesting for me to write because it got me a little more acquainted with the other teams in Harding’s new region.

This will be Harding’s fourth NCAA Tournament appearance in the 11 years I’ve been following the program (also the fourth overall), and the Bisons are 0-for-3 thus far in the first round.  If you’re like me, you’re looking for a glimmer of hope that a tournament win is just around the corner.  Here’s your glimmer of hope, and much more.

#1 Minnesota State vs. #8 Arkansas Tech

#1 Minnesota State-Mankato Mavericks

Ranked #4 nationally in aggregate computer rankings
24–4 D-II record, 20th-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 40.7%

Tendencies
Pace: Slow-to-moderate pace of 66.4 possessions per game is partially the result of playing in the NSIC, the nation’s slowest-paced conference. In a different conference, it’s not hard to see how they might play at a more moderate pace.
Shot selection: Two-point heavy. At 75.2%, the Mavericks are in the top 25 nationally in favoring the two-point shot over threes. Despite this, they are just average at getting to the FT line, where they do make a healthy 73.7%.

Strengths
1. Scoring efficiency. Fourth nationally with 117.4 points per 100 possessions. Accounting for their top-20 schedule, the Mavericks are arguably the second-best offensive team in the country, to #1 West Liberty.
2. Rebounding. MSU ranks in the top 25 nationally in both offensive rebound percentage (38.6%) and defensive rebound percentage (72.9%), so it is clear they use their size to their advantage.
3. No turnovers. They are 25th nationally in (lowest) turnover rate, surrendering possession just 17% of the time before getting a shot. The NSIC was the least turnover-prone conference, in addition to being the slowest-paced, so this is partially a function of the conference.
4. Disciplined defense. Mankato keeps opponents off the free-throw line and makes them hit shots, ranking 12th nationally in fewest free-throw attempts per field goal attempt.

Weaknesses
1. Forcing turnovers. With disciplined defense often comes a trade-off in not forcing turnovers, and the Mavericks rank in the bottom 15% in that category.
2. Defensive efficiency. This is only a weakness relative to other strengths, as Mankato still ranks in the top half of D-II in this regard, even with their difficult schedule (and playing in the nation’s most efficient scoring conference). Excellent rebounding and a refusal to foul are counteracted by difficulties forcing turnovers and average three-point defense.

vs.

#8 Arkansas Tech Wonder Boys

Ranked #70 nationally
17–11 D-II record, 78th-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 1.0%

Tendencies
Pace: Slow, 63.3 possessions per game in a slower-than-average Great American Conference.
Shot selection: Balanced. Virtually even with the national averages, taking two-thirds of their shots from inside the arc. They get to the line at a higher-than-average rate consistent with the rest of the GAC.

Strengths
1. Defensive efficiency. The GAC this year was the third-most-defensive conference in terms of fewest points per 100 possessions. Arkansas Tech was the leader among all of these teams, ranking 16th nationally at 93.3 pts. allowed/100.
2. Field goal percentage defense. The main reason for Tech’s defensive prowess is interior defense that ranks 11th nationally at just 42.6%. Presumably as a result, their opponents chose to shoot more threes than all but 7 other teams (41.3% of shots), even though Tech was also in the top 25% defending beyond the arc.
3. Defensive rebounding. The Wonder Boys ranked 24th in defensive rebounding percentage (72.7%), which combined nicely with their field goal percentage defense to end a lot of opposing possessions.

Weaknesses
1. Shooting. You would think it important for a basketball team to be able to shoot, and in fact it is. For all of ATU’s defensive prowess, though, they are not very good at putting the ball in the basket, either inside or outside. Both their 45.7% success rate on twos and their 31.8% rate on threes rank in the bottom quarter of teams nationally. They also shoot only 65.2% from the free-throw line.
2. Offensive rebounding and turnovers. I’m lumping these together because their rates were close to the GAC averages, but they were nevertheless slightly below the national average in both categories, making it difficult to mask their shooting woes.
3. Offensive efficiency. 95.7 points per 100 possessions ranks them in the bottom 20% nationally.

Matchup Notes

Unstoppable force vs. immovable object? Clearly the matchup of MSU’s prolific offense against ATU’s stifling defense will be the one to watch, but the Mavericks’ relative strength on defense compared to Tech’s woeful offense should still give them a healthy edge. One other thing to note, though, is that the pace of this game should be fairly slow, which in theory gives MSU fewer chances to assert their dominance. It’s not much for the Wonder Boys to hang their hats on—MSU still has an 86% chance to win according to the Log5 method—but it’s something.

#4 Central Missouri vs. #5 Harding

#4 Central Missouri Mules

Ranked #23 nationally
19–7 D-II record, 91st-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 11.3%

Tendencies
Pace: Moderately fast. Among the fastest-paced teams in a relatively slow Central region, Central Missouri are easily in the top third of the nation in pace.
Shot selection: Balanced. The Mules have an ever-so-slight tendency toward the two-point shot compared to the national average, but they are effectively quite balanced, shooting 67.2% of their overall attempts from inside the arc.

Strengths
1. No turnovers. Central Missouri ranked 14th nationally in protecting the basketball, turning it over on just 16.9% of their offensive possessions.
2. Defensive rebounding. The Mules rebound 72.4% of opponents’ missed shots, ranking them among the top 10% of teams in the nation.
3. Shooting percentage. Both 2-point and 3-point field goal percentage rankings find UCM in the top third of the national rankings.

Weaknesses
1. Forcing turnovers. Like MSU, UCM does not force a lot of turnovers for their opponents, relying more on their ability to end possessions by forcing bad shots and getting rebounds. As a result of their relatively low pressure on the ball, they do benefit from fewer fouls and fewer free throws against them than most MIAA teams (32.9% vs. a conference average of 38.1%).
2. Offensive rebounding. The Mules don’t get a lot of second chances compared to other teams, pulling down just over 30% of their misses, so there’s more pressure on them to get good shots and make them.
3. Three-point defense. This may be a result of playing in a good three-point shooting conference, as the MIAA as a whole made 35.7% of threes in conference play, but UCM is below the national average, allowing a success rate of 34.9% to opponents on shots from beyond the arc.

vs.

#5 Harding Bisons

Ranked #60 nationally
19–9 D-II record, 101st-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 1.6%

Tendencies
Pace: Moderately slow. The Bisons averaged 64.8 possessions per game against a GAC average of 66.6 and national average of 68.5, which is enough to rank them among the slowest third of teams.
Shot selection: Three-point heavy. Harding ranked in the top 20 nationally, taking 42.6% of attempted shots from three-point range, even in a conference that only slightly favored the outside shot. The Bisons were also fouled at a much higher rate than most teams, nearly taking a free throw for every other field goal attempt (46.8%).

Strengths
1. Free-throw shooting. Most GAC teams couldn’t avoid it, but the Bisons got to the free-throw line and made their opponents pay throughout the season. With an attempt rate in the top 20 and a FT% just outside the top 10% nationally at 74.8%, the Bisons scored nearly a quarter of their points with no one guarding them. As you might guess, that’s an efficient way to score.
2. Three-point defense. Opponents didn’t seem to react much, taking attempts from outside at virtually the national average rate, but the Bisons were nearly as stingy at allowing three-pointers as they were prolific at attempting them. Just 31.8% of opponents’ threes were successful.
3. Field goal shooting. It’s not a stretch to assume that a good free-throw shooting team would also make more of their field goals than most, and indeed the Bisons rank in the nation’s top 20% in both 2-point (51.5%) and 3-point (37.2%) field goal conversion rates.

Weaknesses
1. Offensive rebounding. Teams that shoot a lot of threes tend to get fewer offensive rebounds, and that is also true of the Bisons, who bring back just 27.1% of their own misses and rank in the bottom 15% in that category. They have to make shots the first time around to be effective.
2. Turnovers. The Bisons are not a particularly athletic team and are prone to more turnovers than average, but they struggle more with forcing turnovers, doing so just 17.8% of the time in a turnover-prone GAC. Their opponents are generally going to get shots, whether they make them or not.

Matchup Notes

The game should feature a moderate pace, balancing the styles of the two teams. Even though UCM should be the favorite based on their performance throughout the season (Log5 gives them a 70% chance to win), the Bisons have an interesting matchup advantage, considering that UCM is merely average at three-point defense and the Bisons shoot well from beyond the arc. However, Harding may not have much recourse if they can’t get the threes to fall, given Central Missouri’s defensive rebounding prowess. The game may also hinge on how tightly it is officiated, since Harding loves to get to the free-throw line.

#3 Augustana vs. #6 Upper Iowa

#3 Augustana Vikings

Ranked #17 nationally
19–8 D-II record, 33rd-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 12.9%

Tendencies
Pace: Slow-to-moderate. Augie was one of the faster-paced teams in the slow-paced NSIC, averaging 66 possessions per game, but that was still below the national average.
Shot selection: Balanced, with a slight tendency toward the long ball. The Vikings attempted 34.6% of field goals from three-point range, placing them in the 60th percentile of teams nationally. They also took a fair percentage of free throws, with one for every 2.5 field goal attempts, a rate well above the national average and tops in the Northern Sun.

Strengths
1. No turnovers. Part of a recurring theme for the NSIC, Augustana holds on to the basketball well, preventing turnovers better than 90% of the rest of the country, but how much of that is indicative of the style of play instead of a particular strength, I don’t really know. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, since they were still a good bit better at 17.5% than the conference average of 18.5%.
2. Defensive rebounding. Augie’s opponents tended to favor the three-point shot a little more than average, but not enough to explain away all of their strength in rebounding the basketball. They were in the top sixth of the nation at 71.4%.
3. Disciplined defense. Another hallmark of the NSIC is a lack of fouls, and Augustana bested the average in this strong conference, allowing a free throw for only 30% of opponent field goal attempts.

Weaknesses
1. Forcing turnovers. It’s another hallmark of the possession-focused NSIC, but nevertheless, Augie seems not to take a lot of risks when it comes to ending opponent possessions before a shot can be taken.
2. Free-throw shooting. For all their chances at the line, the Vikings made their free throws at a rate (68.2%) lower than the national average of 69.8%.
3. Shooting defense. In one of the most efficient offensive conferences, it’s tough to defend well. Augie bested the conference averages in both 2-point shooting (49.8%) and 3-point shooting (35.6%), but both figures are worse than the national averages.

#6 Upper Iowa

Ranked #30 nationally
19–11 D-II record, 25th-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 5.5%

Tendencies
Pace: Slow. The Peacocks are moderate by NSIC standards but slow from a national perspective, averaging 63.9 possessions per game.
Shot Selection: Two-point heavy. UIU take over 70% of their field goal attempts from inside the arc, which places them in the top 25% in that regard.

Strengths
1. Defensive rebounding. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, a lot of the NSIC teams profile similarly, and UIU is another team that excels at grabbing defensive boards, in the top 25 nationally at 72.7%.
2. Free-throw shooting. The Peacocks are only slightly above-average at getting to the line, but they make the most of their opportunities, converting 76.4%, which places them 14th in the nation.
3. Inside shooting. Fitting with their tendency to take inside shots is their ability to make inside shots. Their percentage of 50.8% only marginally exceeded the average in the NSIC, but it’s good enough to place in the 74th percentile nationally.

Weaknesses
1. Fouls. Actually, the main problem here is allowing a lot of free throw attempts, although losing players does present its own problem. UIU are in the bottom quarter of the nation despite playing in the relatively whistle-free NSIC. Even teams that don’t shoot free throws well still make them at a high enough rate to make this a problem for the Peacocks, who commit a personal foul roughly once every 2:12 of game time.
2. Three-point shooting. There’s a theme here, to be sure, behind the reason Upper Iowa take more shots than normal from inside the arc. 33.5% isn’t terrible, as it’s only a point off the national average, but it’s enough to rank them in the bottom third nationally.
3. Offensive rebounding. Their 29.8% rate ranks exactly on the 33.3rd percentile marker.
4. Forcing turnovers. Returning to the broken record, one of UIU’s lowest national rankings in a key statistical category is 222nd in opponent turnover rate, at 19.2%. They force turnovers at a higher rate than the conference average, though, so it’s possible this is not a real problem for the team.

Matchup Notes

We don’t exactly have to imagine what a matchup would be like between these teams, since the conference mates split their season series, with the away team winning both games. The winner won the rebounding battle in each game. Augustana committed 26 fouls in their home loss to UIU, who made 21-of-35 free throws in that contest. The stats say to expect a relatively slow-paced game with rebounding controlled by the defensive team. Augie is favored to win 60/40, but this is the closest first-round matchup, and UIU should stay in the game if they maintain their discipline and refuse to let Augie hurt them at the free-throw line.

#2 Winona State vs. #7 Northeastern State

#2 Winona State Warriors

Ranked #9 nationally
24–7 D-II record, 27th-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 24.8%

Tendencies
Pace: Slow-to-moderate. A lot of the Northern Sun teams that made the tournament play at a relatively similar pace. Winona’s 65.9 possessions per game is moderate for the NSIC but slightly slow on a national scale.
Shot selection: Slightly favors three-pointers. 35.4% of attempts come from outside, which ranks Winona in the top third nationally, even though it is not a huge deviation from the national average of 34.5%. Winona also get to the FT line more than average, particularly for the NSIC, where they are just a step behind Augustana.

Strengths
1. Interior defense. The Warriors use their size well, defending the two-point shot better than all but 12 teams in the nation while playing in the most efficient offensive conference. 43.2% is incredibly stingy in the NSIC.
2. Interior shooting. While they haven’t been quite as strong as on the defensive end, Winona is in the top 50 in two-point percentage made at 51.9%.
3. Free-throw shooting. Augustana may have a few more attempts, but Winona State made 70 more free throws thanks to a superior percentage made, 73.8%. Combined with getting to the line a lot, this can be a devastating form of attack.
4. Disciplined defense. There are other areas where Winona rank in the top third of the nation, and I won’t get into all of them, but like several of the other top NSIC teams, they are thrifty with their fouls, allowing roughly one free throw attempt per 3.4 field goal attempts. (It’s worth noting that 497 fouls may not seem thrifty, but they have allowed over 1800 FGA.)

Weaknesses
1. Forcing turnovers. Winona’s only real weaknesses are the same as the other NSIC contenders. The Warriors are in the bottom 20% of the country in forcing turnovers, with an opponent turnover rate of 18.6%.
2. Offensive rebounding. Winona has to shoot well, since they don’t give themselves a lot of second chances (30%).
3. Turnovers. From a national perspective, this is a strength, but compared to the NSIC, Winona were relatively turnover-prone, giving it away on 19.2% of their possessions.

#7 Northeastern State RiverHawks

Ranked #48 nationally
17–8 D-II record, 96th-ranked SoS
Elite Eight probability: 2.2%

Tendencies
Pace: Slow. NSU play at an NSIC pace in the slightly faster MIAA, which puts them toward the slow end of the spectrum with 64.6 possessions per game.
Shot selection: Balanced, about as balanced as they come. The MIAA favors the three-point shot more than average, but MSU play fairly straightforward. They draw fouls at a higher-than-average rate, even in the above-average MIAA.

Strengths
1. Free-throw shooting. Combine the high rate of attempts with one of the top ten percentages in the nation (77.5%), and you have a team that doesn’t have to shoot lights-out from the field to score efficiently.
2. Defensive rebounding. Ranking 13th nationally and tops in the Central region, the RiverHawks pull in 73.8% of their opponents’ missed shots.
3. Three-point defense. In a conference that shoots as well as the MIAA does, allowing 33.3% on three-pointers is quite good.
4. Three-point shooting. 37.7% on threes ranks NSU in the nation’s top 50.

Weaknesses
1. Forcing turnovers. Northeastern is not in the NSIC, but this weakness probably describes them better than any team in that conference. NSU forces a turnover just 17.6% of the time, ranking in the bottom 10% of the nation and below all the NSIC teams mentioned above.
2. Offensive rebounding. For as good as they are rebounding on the defensive end, NSU is terrible at getting their own second chances, pulling down just 26.7% of their own missed shots.

Matchup Notes

Expect to see a lot of made free throws if this one is called tightly. NSU should expect to do well on the defensive glass, so Winona will definitely need their strong interior scoring to continue to be a strength. Winona also should be able to play their style without seeing a lot of extra pressure to force turnovers. NSU may want to play to their three-point shooting strength more than usual against a team that defends as well as Winona does inside, since it may be the best chance they have at upending the 76% chance that the Log5 method gives Winona to win the game.

Filed under D-II / Harding

Music in 2012

January 21, 2013 Leave a comment

I haven’t done a year-end music post every year, or really any blogging at all in the past year, but these posts get me thinking about what it is that I like and don’t like in music, so I’ll keep doing them as long as they keep serving that purpose.

Most lists like this one came out about a month ago, but I find it too difficult to review a year’s worth of music before the year is even over.  So, I give it a month or so to get the fullest picture I can, even though there will inevitably some album or song I will wish I had included if I had just known about it.

My music tastes are constantly changing, and some years I listen to more new music than others.  In 2011, I listed a handful of my favorite albums and songs of the year, along with some disappointing albums.

This year, I wasn’t disappointed as frequently by bands I liked previously, thanks in part to my listening to albums first on Spotify before buying them, and I highly recommend that service if you haven’t tried it.  In fact, you can get the entire top 40 below as a Spotify playlist here to get you started.

Songs

Since I listened to quite a bit of new music this year, the list is long.  I’m going with my top 40 songs as the cutoff.  Links are provided to the Amazon album page, the official music video for the song (if one exists), and a live performance of the song.  The prices are as of 1/17/13, and some of them are pretty great deals right now.  Without further adieu, the list is below:

40. LP, “Into The Wild”
Into the Wild on Amazon ($5.99) | Official Video | Live Video
This song’s placement on my top 40 is more about LP’s amazing voice and less about the song itself.  She has some serious talent.

39. Iamdynamite, “Where Will We Go”
Supermegafantastic on Amazon ($5) | Official Video
Every time I listen to this song or “Stereo” (which appears later on the list), I am impressed that Iamdynamite are just a two-piece band, with both a guitarist and drummer singing.  There are not a lot of fun minimalist rock bands out there, but Iamdynamite seem promising to me.  Interestingly (or perhaps not), the lead singer shares his name with a more prominent fellow vocalist, Chris Martin of Coldplay.  That’s probably where the similarities end.

38. Bloc Party, “Octopus”
Four on Amazon ($5.49) | Official Video | Live Video
I’m not familiar with their previous efforts, but this lead single off of Bloc Party’s fourth album may have me looking back for more.  The repetitive guitar line has the sound of an alarm, which is fitting for a song conjuring up images of fear.

37. Atlas Genius, “Symptoms”
Through The Glass EP on Amazon ($3.99) | Official Video | Live Video
For a band without a full-length album out yet, Atlas Genius have certainly seen a lot of airplay on the alternative stations I frequent.  Lead single “Trojans” is an interesting song, but not as catchy to me as this one.  The band also have a song, “If So,” on the FIFA 13 soundtrack, which is itself represented three other times on this list.

36. Capital Cities, “Safe and Sound”
Capital Cities EP on Amazon ($7.99) | Official Video | Live Video
The video is a bit odd, but on the surface it seems like a fairly simple pop song about optimism in times of trouble.

35. Anberlin, “Someone Anyone”
Vital on Amazon ($9.49) | Live Video (acoustic)
Anberlin seems to be at their best when they can create a powerful wall of rock sound behind their emotionally-driven lyrics, which in this case are about understanding the implications of either a specific act of war, or a perhaps a larger fight of some sort.  If you can apply the meaning to something, the appeal of the rock rhythm behind it is fairly strong.

34. alt-J, “Dissolve Me”
An Awesome Wave on Amazon ($5.99) | Live Video
Winners of the 2012 Mercury Prize for the best album from the UK (plus Ireland), alt-J make their first appearance of three on the top 40.  Several songs from An Awesome Wave make reference to love that exists in various states of distress.  “Dissolve Me” covers the pain of trying to get to sleep while apart from a loved one.

33. Of Monsters and Men, “Mountain Sound”
My Head Is An Animal on Amazon ($8.99) | Official Video | Live Video
The second single off of the debut album from this Icelandic group, “Mountain Sound” is a simple, catchy pop/folk song about running from some kind of past transgression.

32. Django Django, “Hail Bop”
Django Django on Amazon ($5) | Official Video
The title’s spelling might throw you off, but I can’t see an interpretation of the song that doesn’t involve the comet Hale Bopp, which passed by our planet in 1997 and inspired a mass suicide by members of the cult Heaven’s Gate.  The cult members believed that their souls would board a spacecraft that was trailing the comet, and as crazy as it may sound, the song makes a little more sense within that context.

31. Muse, “Panic Station”
The 2nd Law on Amazon ($3.99) | Live Video
Muse are bombastic as a rule, which makes them a somewhat polarizing band, particularly if you’re not willing to suspend realism and just enjoy the ride a little.  I can understand either way, really, but I love them.  Although The 2nd Law crosses them more and more into pop territory and away from their harder rock roots, it still maintains a lot of the characteristics that make Muse what they are.  “Panic Station” falls more into their newer style, but at least it has a cool guitar solo.

30. The Chevin, “Champion”
Borderland on Amazon ($8.99) | Official Video | Live Video
There is an operatic quality to this song that has made it stick with me most of the year.  Check out the Letterman performance to see lead singer Coyle Girelli belt this one out.

29. Walk The Moon, “Anna Sun”
Walk The Moon on Amazon ($7.99) | Official Video | Live Video
Walk The Moon are not exactly breaking new ground lyrically or musically, but their songs do have some good choruses.  “Anna Sun” is the lead single and most memorable song from their self-titled debut.

28. Royal Teeth, “Wild”
Act Naturally EP on Amazon ($4.95) | Live Video
Hopefully Royal Teeth’s songs will get a little more lyrically interesting, but I do like the beats and harmonies on “Wild,” which you may have heard in several commercials in 2012.

27. Soundgarden, “Non-State Actor”
King Animal on Amazon ($8.99) | Official Audio | Live Video
Even without Audioslave, a political song from Chris Cornell just feels right.  This one rails against the unelected who are able to use the power of their money to get their voices heard and further their interests.

26. Django Django, “Default”
Django Django on Amazon ($5) | Official Video | Live Video
It’s a peppy, catchy light rock sound backing this put-down-themed track.  Django Django have some nice harmonies and an interesting overall sound to them.

25. Dave Matthews Band, “Mercy”
Away From The World on Amazon ($9.99) | Official Video
DMB is one of those bands that some people love to hate, but I’ve always appreciated their instrumental talents and think most of their songs are actually pretty interesting.  That said, they are certainly past their songwriting peak on their latest album.  “Mercy” is a strong song and an excellent choice for a lead single, but much of their recent work lacks the energy of “Stand Up” or their earlier albums.

24. Regina Spektor, “All The Rowboats”
What We Saw From The Cheap Seats on Amazon ($5.99) | Official Video | Live Video
I’m fairly new to Spektor, and apparently this song has been around for a while in her live performances.  Nevertheless, it meets my inclusion criteria for the list, having first been released on an album with 2012′s Cheap Seats.  Her voice is excellent, and the song itself is an interesting take on what it means to be an artist today.

23. Hey Rosetta! “Yer Spring”
Seeds on Amazon ($5) | Official Video | Live Video
This Canadian band is a little different from a composition standpoint, including a cellist and violinist in the main band, and “Yer Spring” is also a little different from a typical song.  The song lacks a real chorus but instead just takes you through a progression from one related thought to another, resulting in what I think is a beautiful song.

22. K’naan, “Hurt Me Tomorrow”
Country, God Or The Girl on Amazon ($9.49) | Official Video | Live Video
“Hurt Me Tomorrow” is a little out of place as the only rap song on this list.  However, it represents a nice departure from that genre’s misogynistic, foul-mouthed stereotype and is more than just a beat—it’s a creative song about someone who is (comically) not quite ready to let go of a relationship.

21. Sleigh Bells, “Comeback Kid”
Reign of Terror on Amazon ($5) | Official Video | Live Video
Sleigh Bells, probably more so than all of the other bands on this list, are a bit of an acquired taste, one I haven’t fully acquired at this point.  Their sound is rough around the edges (and really, really rough live), but I do like this catchy lead single off of 2012′s Reign of Terror.

20. Dry The River, “New Ceremony”
Shallow Bed on Amazon ($5) | Official Video
The rest of the Dry The River album was a little too melodramatic for my tastes, but “New Ceremony” hits the right balance.

19. Imagine Dragons, “It’s Time”
Night Visions on Amazon ($8.99) | Official Video | Live Video
A fairly basic rock song with a big chorus that will stick with you, and based on this song reaching the top 20 of Billboard’s Hot 100, it has stuck with a lot of people.

18. alt-J, “Breezeblocks”
An Awesome Wave on Amazon ($5.99) | Official Video | Live Video
Inspired by the imagery of Maurice Sendak’s classic Where The Wild Things Are, alt-J make the list again with a creative song about wanting someone so badly that you would hurt yourself (and them) to have them. “Please don’t go…I’ll eat you whole!”

17. Churchill, “Change”
Change EP on Amazon ($3.99) | Official Video | Live Video
I’m guessing this song will get a little bigger in 2013 than in 2012, but I’ve been hearing it for a few months and wanted to get it on this year’s list.  Churchill seem like a talented band—”Change” singer Bethany Kelly is not even the band’s usual lead vocalist—and I’m fairly excited to see what this indie-folk group can do on a full-length album.

16. Miike Snow, “Paddling Out”
Happy To You on Amazon ($9.49) | Official Video | Live Video
The only Swedish artist on this list makes the top 20 with this weird-but-fun song.  The beats really make the song what it is, but my impression is also colored by a couple of live performances I found online.  The one linked above is a studio performance, but they’ve also been on Letterman with one of the largest sets I’ve seen on that show.

15. Maps & Atlases, “Fever”
Beware and Be Grateful on Amazon ($8.99) | Live Video
I had never given much thought to “math rock” as a genre, but supposedly that’s what Maps & Atlases are.  I would expect to feel overwhelmed by the complexity of such a band’s work, but they’ve written some nice melodies to make that complexity work for them, and “Fever” is chief among those.

14. Mumford & Sons, “Below My Feet”
Babel on Amazon ($9.99) | Live Video
It took a while to get to them, but this is the first of four Mumford songs to make the top 40.  Babel does not pack quite the same emotional punch as Sigh No More, but it is still a solid album with plenty of songs worth remembering.  “Below My Feet” was the second song they performed on their SNL apperance from around the time the album came out, and I like how it builds into a truly soaring conclusion.

13. Fun. “Some Nights”
Some Nights on Amazon ($3.99) | Official Video | Live Video
Another atypical song structure is behind “Some Nights,” the title track from this Album of the Year Grammy nominee.  To me, this is their best song, although “We Are Young” finished higher on Billboard’s year-end Hot 100 chart and is the song that catapulted them to their current popularity.  I’ve always had a taste for bands that max out on harmonies and melodic vocals, and Fun fit that description to a T.  Maybe it’s a little too emo?  I don’t know, but it’s still a cool song, even if I wasn’t as big a fan of the rest of the album.

12. Iamdynamite, “Stereo”
Supermegafantastic on Amazon ($5) | Official Video | Live Video
I mentioned before how impressed I am with the sound that Iamdynamite are able to get out of just vocals, a guitar, and drums.  You have to be pretty talented as a writer of lyrics and melodies to thrive on such simplicity (and no computer effects), and “Stereo” is the best example of their achievement to date.

11. Mumford & Sons, “Holland Road”
Babel on Amazon ($9.99)
I’m thrilled that Mumford & Sons have taken off in popularity with Babel, even if it is a little frustrating that they haven’t made huge strides in songwriting between albums.  This song is an exception, as it’s more unique instrumentally than the comparatively simple support behind the rest of the album’s fist-pumping choruses.

10. The Shins, “The Rifle’s Spiral”
Port of Morrow on Amazon ($5) | Official Video | Live Video
While not in the same class as “Simple Song,” “The Rifle’s Spiral” stands on its own merit as a rock song with lyrical quality that rises head-and-shoulders above most of what you hear these days.  The key for me with The Shins is that this quality doesn’t serve to make the music inaccessible, but instead it enhances what is already a song with a solid beat and tune.

9. Soundgarden, “Been Away Too Long”
King Animal on Amazon ($8.99) | Official Video | Live Video
Although my age and one-time fondness for Rage Against The Machine (particularly Tom Morello) will probably always leave me biased towards Audioslave—after all, I was still only ten when Superunknown was released—Chris Cornell has returned to his grunge roots, and that is just fine with me.  Kim Thayil’s always been solid, too.  “Been Away Too Long” is fairly self-explanatory, and it is indeed good to have Cornell and Soundgarden back.

8. Of Monsters and Men, “Little Talks”
My Head Is An Animal on Amazon ($8.99) | Official Video | Live Video
“Little Talks” is a touching call-and-response style song about a couple dealing with the wife’s loss of her mental faculties.  It is the highlight of the Of Monsters and Men album, one which Amazon’s editors labeled the best of 2012.

7. Punch Brothers, “Movement and Location”
Who’s Feeling Young Now? on Amazon ($5.99) | Live Video
They will never be Nickel Creek, but Punch Brothers will do nicely to fill the void left by the former bluegrass super-group.  “Movement and Location” is the opener and most interesting song on the 2012 effort by mandolin master Chris Thile’s new band.

6. Muse, “Survival”
The 2nd Law on Amazon ($3.99) | Live Video 1 (London 2012 Closing Ceremony) | Live Video 2 (HQ Video)
“Survival” is a bit too simple from a lyrical standpoint to be realistically considered alongside Muse’s best songs, but the building crescendo of guitars and chant-worthy vocals still place it among 2012′s best.  The London 2012 Olympics could not have chosen a better band and song for a theme, although NBC certainly left me with a sour taste by failing to include the Closing Ceremony performance in its US broadcast of the event.  Poor form on the dismount, but I have a link above if you want to check it out (stay for the commentators’ reaction at the end).

5. Mumford & Sons, “Lover of the Light”
Babel on Amazon ($9.99) | Official Video | Live Video
Clocking in a little longer than most of their other songs, “Lover of the Light” stands out from the others around it on Babel, matches the emotional pull that was present across Mumford’s 2010 debut, and it is one of the best songs on the album lyrically.

4. Muse, “Madness”
The 2nd Law on Amazon ($3.99) | Official Video | Live Video
Lots of things about Muse are not quite what they were six or eight years ago.  I don’t know if it’s their appeal to popularity dumbing down the songs just a little, or if it just represents a great band a little past its songwriting peak.  There is no “Knights of Cydonia” or “Supermassive Black Hole” to be found on either of the last two albums.  Maybe they’ve matured, but I miss the widely varying sound that has now morphed into a more radio-friendly, but less interesting Muse.  “Madness” is one more step distancing the current form of Muse from that previous iteration, but it is a heartfelt song with memorable hooks.

3. Mumford & Sons, “I Will Wait”
Babel on Amazon ($9.99) | Live Video
The lead single off of Babel does not strike me in quite the way that some of the songs on Sigh No More did, but it is a great track nonetheless.  The harmonies are undeniably catchy, containing the best hooks on their album and perhaps the best of any song this year.  There’s a reason Mumford are now one of the most popular groups in the world.

2. The Shins, “Simple Song”
Port of Morrow on Amazon ($5) | Official Video | Live Video
It really is a simple, straightforward rock song, but “Simple Song” is so earnestly and powerfully delivered that I couldn’t get it out of my head for most of the year.  “Simple Song” raises the bar above the standard love song cliches with lyrics that get to the heart of what it means and how it feels to love someone.  The Shins’ live performances are also impressive because it can be difficult to fathom Mercer actually hitting the high notes in the chorus, but he does it every time.

1. alt-J, “Tessellate”
An Awesome Wave on Amazon ($5.99) | Official Video | Live Video
Tessellate is probably the most accessible alt-J song, and I think it represents the best confluence of the creative lyrics and distinctive sound of their debut album.  The guitar work is subtle, but it moves well with the vocals, and the bass line contributes to a haunting overall sound.  Joe Newman can really sing, and he shows it on this track, but his unique voice is only one piece of the puzzle that is alt-J.

Favorite videos from the above group: Iamdynamite “Where Will We Go” (official), Mumford & Sons “Lover of the Light” (official), Muse “Survival” (live, either performance), Hey Rosetta “Yer Spring” (live), and alt-J “Tessellate” (live, including “Interlude 1″).

Albums

5. Of Monsters and Men, My Head Is An Animal
My Head Is An Animal on Amazon ($8.99)

4. Soundgarden, King Animal
King Animal on Amazon ($8.99)

3. Punch Brothers, Who’s Feeling Young Now?
Who’s Feeling Young Now? on Amazon ($5.99)

2. Mumford & Sons, Babel
Babel on Amazon ($9.99)

1. alt-J, An Awesome Wave
An Awesome Wave on Amazon ($5.99)

Other Notes: Criteria and Disclaimer

For songs, criteria for inclusion on the list is as follows: The song must not have been released on a full-length album by the artist prior to 2012.  Songs included on a prior year’s list are ineligible.  Even though most of a song’s radio airplay may have occurred in 2012, the song is not eligible if it does not meet that criteria.  An example of an ineligible song for 2012 would include anything by Gotye (Making Mirrors was released in 2011).  On the other hand, “It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons was on an EP last year, but since its first inclusion on a full-length album was in 2012, it is still eligible.  There are several EP-only songs on this year’s list that will not be eligible when (presumably) the artist releases a full-length album in 2013.

I will also add the following disclaimer.  If any form of entertainment facilitates intensely personal tastes, it’s music.  You may like folk, country, rap, dance, r&b, metal, classical, or something in-between.  I was raised on mostly folk and pop from the 60′s through the 80′s, and then I gained a taste for rock that my parents didn’t have.  Now I listen mostly to alternative “radio” (really Slacker Radio & similar apps on my phone), which kind of runs the genre gamut but focuses more on pop/rock.  My music may not be your taste, and my list is not intended to imply that I think an artist or song is objectively great, just that I think it’s great.

Filed under Uncategorized

Music in 2011

February 10, 2012 1 Comment

I realize I don’t post much anymore, although I try to post baby pics and the occasional opinion on Facebook and Twitter.  So this will seem even more random than if I had five or six Braves or Harding posts as a cushion.  With that caveat, I’ll say that 2011 was a pretty good year in music, or at least it was for me.  The lists below are restricted to albums that came out during the calendar year 2011.  I used to do a lot of these kinds of lists, and for some reason I was inspired to do some more.

Five albums I bought and liked in 2011, ranked:

1. Mutemath: Odd Soul. There are few bands I would bother to see live more than once at this point in my life, but I can see myself attending another Mutemath show after having seeing them for the first time in October. Odd Soul is their best work so far, with more guitars, strong melodies, better lyrics (but with room to grow), and Darren King’s trademark out-of-this-world drums.

2. The Belle Brigade (eponymous). You may not want your kids to repeat a select line from “Losers,” but you can only hope they learn to harmonize as well as these grandchildren of composer John Williams. If you enjoy harmony at all, it is a must-listen.

3. Foster the People: Torches. I don’t get the commotion over “Pumped Up Kicks.” Is it really that cool that they made a song with a moderately catchy chorus from the perspective of a crazy person? Maybe it is, I don’t know. The rest of the album is terrific, and if that song can wedge Foster The People into the pop consciousness, I suppose it’s a small price to pay to get something that is actually interesting on the radio.

4. The Black Keys: El Camino. I’m pretty sure that everyone who still likes rock or soul music is obligated to like The Black Keys, and well, I like them too.

5. Manchester Orchestra: Simple Math. He sounds like he might completely lose it one day, but the singer’s introspective lyrics and unhinged delivery give Manchester Orchestra an interesting sound for the rock genre.

Three notable albums that did not meet my expectations, ranked:

1. Coldplay: Mylo Xyloto. Hugely disappointing given their step forward on Viva La Vida. I could only manage one full listen of the entire album, although I do like “Every Teardrop…” a little, so I guess that’s something.

2. Death Cab for Cutie: Codes and Keys. The last three DCFC albums each had several songs that would have topped or nearly topped the next list, but there was nothing memorable to me on this album.

3. Switchfoot: Vice Verses. Perhaps I’m in the minority of Switchfoot fans when I say it has been a slow descent for them, from having albums full of interesting, catchy rock songs with a serious message to something more bland and less moving, but Vice Verses is definitely the latter. There were enough bright spots on their prior album, Hello Hurricane, so hopefully the Switchfoot song well is not dry.

Ten favorite songs of 2011, ranked:

1. The Belle Brigade: Losers
2. Mutemath: Blood Pressure
3. Foster The People: Call It What You Want
4. Manchester Orchestra: April Fool
5. Mutemath: Prytania
6. The Joy Formidable: Whirring
7. Foster The People: Helena Beat
8. The Black Keys: Gold On The Ceiling
9. Gotye featuring Kimbra: Somebody That I Used To Know
10. The Belle Brigade: Where Not To Look For Freedom

Just missed the cut (alphabetical by artist):
Florence + The Machine: Shake It Out
Foo Fighters: Rope
Foster The People: Don’t Stop (Color On The Walls)
Manchester Orchestra: Simple Math
Mutemath: Allies
Mutemath: Odd Soul
Mutemath: Quarantine
Saint Motel: Puzzle Pieces

A note on my musical tastes

Rock with a pop sensibility, or perhaps the other way around. I like music with melodic hooks and beats, so a lot of critically-praised music is just inaccessible to me. It’s not for lack of trying—I just don’t like a lot of it. Also, a creative lyricist usually isn’t enough to get my interest, so you won’t see a lot of singer-songwriter stuff. And for those who think I should listen to more Christian music, I find most of the popular stuff to be boring retreads of pop/rock from a few years prior, but I’m always open to something new (or new to me). As with all genres, there is certainly good Christian music I haven’t heard. Just understand that and take all of the lists above with a grain of salt.

Filed under Other Tagged with

Worship Styles and Consumerism

October 26, 2011 Leave a comment

A church changing its style of worship is not usually a decision taken lightly by elders or members.  Although it may occupy only a small portion of the church’s outward mission, the worship style is deeply ingrained into the hearts and minds of the church’s members and is often a touchy issue to bring up.  Many members feel strongly about worship styles, to the point that they believe those who worship differently are not following God.

My own church family has had its disagreements about this issue in the past, and whenever it comes up in a discussion, my ears tend to perk up.  This is partly because I favor a more contemporary worship style than what is traditionally present in a Church of Christ, placing me in the minority among the membership as a whole (but probably in the majority among my own generation).

A lot of churches structure their Sunday worship in a way that is not particularly appealing to young people or to the unchurched.  The style is often boring and predictable, and the songs include words that many of us don’t understand or use today.  Even if we set aside the issue of instrumental music—I believe it’s permissible, but virtually all Churches of Christ still worship exclusively a cappella—it’s difficult for some churches to even embrace newer worship songs, an unconventional worship structure, or even a different way to lead singing.  These are changes which almost certainly would enhance a church’s ability to reach the unchurched or younger CoC transfers, both of which are vital groups that a sustainable church must reach.

I’m not going to suggest that a contemporary worship style is the only thing needed to bring people to Jesus.  It absolutely is not.  However, evangelism has to start somewhere, and this is one way to help open the doors as wide as possible to begin that conversation.

At any rate, one of the arguments I’ve heard over the years against changing is that it represents “giving in” to any number of negative things: worldliness, pleasing ourselves rather than God, or consumerism.  Jay Guin posted an interesting thought question today about the latter.  He doesn’t bring his own conclusions to this discussion, but he quotes Ed Stetzer (whose original article I can’t find), who suggests that the reason for the change is important.  Are we changing to accommodate the younger members’ tastes, or to engage new people?  The latter motivation is what has to be present, in both his opinion and mine.

So with that in mind, changing to a more contemporary worship style has nothing to do with worldliness or pleasing ourselves.  Although younger members may enjoy the newer songs, we can acknowledge that both older and newer songs can represent sincere and acceptable worship.  Changing wouldn’t represent giving in to consumerism, but it would be much the opposite.  Instead of choosing to only cater to our personal preference for older songs, we could make the conscious decision to worship in a way that both pleases God and opens doors to new relationships.

I believe that a strong desire to maintain the status quo of the traditional worship style misses the point on a few levels:

For some (perhaps a minority), it may represent a flawed theology of worship, to the extent that there is a belief that singing newer songs is somehow sinful or constitutes worship that is lesser or even unacceptable from God’s perspective.  This requires corrective teaching that is not currently happening at most churches with a traditional worship style.

For others, it represents an approach to evangelism that is too passive, where evangelism is considered a lesser priority than the person’s own preferences in music.  You could actually say turn the tables to say that this mindset is a form of consumerism.  This also may require teaching, although when the discussion is put in these terms, I think most people will quickly understand the error in this mindset.

Still others may resist change in the name of “not causing division,” but this is another passive stance that represents a flawed understanding of the concept of division.  Who is really dividing, if part of the church refuses to adopt a potentially beneficial change?  There is another implicit argument here, that those who would choose not to support such a change are correct in saying that the change is sinful.  This goes back to the flawed theology of worship previously discussed.  “Causing division” is not what happens when such a change is made, unless the change is also sinful.  In this case, it is not, and any resulting split is division caused by those against the change.  Again, this may require teaching on the subjects of unity and division.

Lastly, people may resist because contemporary worship is associated with churches who are labeled “liberal,” denominational, or otherwise unfaithful to God.  The thinking present here is that changing worship is part of a “slippery slope” that leads to other substantial changes to theology.  Upon examination, this is clearly a weak argument—most “slippery slope” arguments are.  Correlation is not the same as causation, and contemporary worship is not the cause of unfaithfulness.  This requires either simple teaching regarding the slippery slope fallacy or necessitates the finding of a causal link between contemporary worship styles and unfaithfulness.  I believe that link does not exist.

I would propose that Christians no longer accept these arguments in favor of an antiquated worship style.  While it is undoubtedly pleasing to God when traditional worship is sincere, the same applies to a contemporary style that offers other benefits.

Filed under Christianity/Ministry

Moneyball Review

September 27, 2011 Leave a comment

I loved the Moneyball book and am a full-fledged baseball stat nerd, but last week I expressed skepticism of its potential as a movie.  Would anyone go to see a movie about the business of baseball?  The answer to that question is apparently yes, as it grossed over $20 million in its opening weekend, no doubt fueled by the star power of Brad Pitt and a significant amount of critical acclaim.  You might not enjoy baseball in the same way that I do, but most critics (and my wife) suggest that it has merit as more than just a genre film.  Now that I’ve seen it, I have to agree with those critics.  It’s a very entertaining movie.

Yes, the movie takes some significant liberties with the facts in order to move the story along.  I have no idea how much of the ex-wife/daughter storyline is true, although Billy Beane’s baseball past is fairly accurate from what I remember (he could have played QB at Stanford instead of signing with the Mets).  The animosity between Beane and (manager Art) Howe in the movie is mostly fabricated.  Jeremy Giambi wasn’t a new signing in 2002, and Scott Hatteberg was an everyday player that year, although he basically only played DH until June.

The movie stayed true to the book in every important way.  Concerns I had about the portrayal of the so-called “Moneyball philosophy” and stat geeks in general were overblown.  The movie understands that Beane’s goal was to maximize the use of his resources.  It makes no attempt to joke about analyst “Peter Brand” living in his mother’s basement or not having what it takes to be an athlete, which would have been a setup for an easy laugh for a less disciplined screen writer, however untrue a portrayal it might be.

I was concerned that the movie would rely too much on relatively trivial moments to really be engrossing from a baseball perspective, and this is true to some extent.  A trade for Ricardo Rincon is not the kind of thing that turns a team around, and a 20-game win streak is not exactly Game 7 of the World Series.

However, it was clear from the outset that this movie was only peripherally about achieving glory on the baseball field.  Rather, it was plainly about a man driven to make the most of his circumstances and at the same time make sense of his own failed career.  This was the most compelling part of the movie for me: the expert way in which Beane’s past was brought into the present to create a character who is perpetually on the brink of figuring everything out, only to never quite get there.  I think this is what makes Moneyball relatable to anyone who may have only seen it because of Brad Pitt or the critical praise—everyone understands what it means to fail and then want to know why.

While the real Billy Beane’s motivations may not align perfectly with those of his movie counterpart, the liberties taken to create an interesting movie character are not so large as to make Moneyball a bad movie from an enthusiast’s perspective.  I’m not so tied to the real-life facts related to the story that I can’t enjoy the movie for what it is: a well-written story with good acting.  The baseball scenes are well put-together and accurate, even if they mostly ignore Oakland’s true key players from that season.  The scene with John Henry at Fenway Park brought back memories of my visit there last year, but more importantly, it represents a great moment where we see what really matters to Billy Beane.

I’ll stop short of attempting to grade Moneyball, since it means something to me that is entirely different from what it will mean to most moviegoers or even most baseball fans.  I thought it was both entertaining and faithful to its source material, a book which was meaningful for me in a different (and less emotional) way.  It’s a good movie to see whether or not you are a baseball fan, but particularly if you are one or have interests in the business world.  Most anyone who is reading this will know that any movie glamorizing the appropriate use of baseball stats is probably going to be a winner in my book.  So as you might have guessed had you just skipped here from the beginning of this review, I think Moneyball the movie is a solid winner.

Filed under Baseball Tagged with

Why I’m a little skeptical of the Moneyball movie

September 22, 2011 Leave a comment

If you read a lot of baseball blogs, you are no doubt aware that there have been some decent reviews and some pretty scathing reviews of the new Moneyball movie by baseball writers.  I respect the opinions of Gleeman, Law, and Leitch, so I will go into the movie with a few key questions that will probably determine how much I enjoy the film:

  1. How much can I suspend disbelief in the areas where I know the movie takes liberties with the facts?  The scouts and Art Howe are not evil or stupid enough in real life to turn them into movie villains, so I know they will be characterized as much more obtuse than they really were.  Law explains these  and other differences in some detail in his review, so I won’t revisit them all here.  Leitch likens this problem to the “it would take more than 1.21 gigawatts to power that car” feeling from Back to the Future.  If you can get past that, perhaps there’s an enjoyable movie to be found.
  2. How is “Peter Brand” portrayed?  As a stat nerd, I’m more than a little self-conscious about how far the character that will be portrayed onscreen by Jonah Hill descends into stereotype.  I already know he’s a baseball nerd who “never played a game in his life,” which is not at all fair to Paul DePodesta (the real “Peter Brand” who wouldn’t let them use his name for the movie).  My concern is that Brand will give, for non–baseball fans, a “face” to baseball nerds which really isn’t representative of the baseball nerd population.
  3. How is the “moneyball” philosophy portrayed?  One of my chief annoyances with critics of the Michael Lewis book, particularly those who never read it, is that the “moneyball” philosophy was boiled down to selecting fat college players who can’t play defense but get on base, and that the stats trump everything when it comes time to make player selections.  Real sabermetrics uses all information including both statistical profiles and scouting reports to make informed decisions.

    People will need to understand that this movie represents a period of time (2002) from which the sabermetric community has grown in the last nine years.  Law explained that in a recent Baseball Today podcast discussing the movie, how he was much more gung-ho about thinking he as an analyst could “replace” scouting when he joined the Blue Jays’ front office, but now he takes a more balanced approach.  This is true of most proponents of sabermetrics today.

    The “moneyball” philosophy, then, is really about exploiting market inefficiencies.  That’s really what the A’s, Beane, and DePodesta were doing when they signed guys like Scott Hatteberg (portrayed in the movie by Chris Pratt in a role I’m excited to see).  It’s a nuanced enough concept that I’m concerned most viewers will take away something else.

  4. How does the conflict portrayed in the book translate into a movie plot?  We’re not talking about The Blind Side, a Lewis book that was a ready-made movie story.  Moneyball distinguishes between the “traditional” approach and what the Oakland A’s were doing ten years ago, but there’s really nothing in the book resembling a plot that will make for a watchable story in anything other than a documentary format.  Obviously this movie is not a documentary, so will the manufactured story lines, clichéd sports movie “big games,” and tense scenes really add up to a satisfying movie?

    Since we’re dealing with Aaron Sorkin’s writing, I’ll bring up The Social Network for comparison.  My main complaint (really my only complaint) with that movie was that it lacked a big payoff at the end, something to truly bring everything you’ve seen into perspective.  Like Moneyball, I knew what was going to happen, and The Social Network was a terrific movie not because of the payoff but because of the fascinating characters and dialogue.  Can the writing carry Moneyball similarly?  I don’t know, but I’m not optimistic because the standard set by The Social Network is so high.

  5. Perhaps more than anything else, I’m a little worried that this movie will re-open a debate that just doesn’t exist today among informed baseball people.  Ken Rosenthal had a nice article to this effect yesterday, explaining that front offices did adapt to the inefficiencies the A’s discovered and adjusted accordingly.

    So when you hear baseball writers and fans (many of whom have remained willfully ignorant) laugh at the A’s struggles since Moneyball, remember that winning teams are not winning because they are ignoring stats.  They are winning because they (a) have more resources or (b) have an approach that likely includes both statistical analysis and traditional scouting.  Very few real baseball decision makers are ignoring the stats in 2011.

    The take-away from Moneyball in terms of baseball philosophy should be that the A’s were ahead of the curve but still imperfect in their approach.  (What’s often forgotten is that the A’s had a terrific starting rotation, one which wasn’t the result of the oversimplified “on base percentage and college players rule” selection process.)  Other teams adjusted, and now low payroll and an awful stadium has the A’s again near the bottom of the league in terms of talent.

In the end, the stats didn’t “beat” the scouts, and it’s unfair and unnecessarily polarizing to portray that as what happened with the A’s.  Hopefully the movie is smart enough to avoid doing that—if it isn’t, we may be close to square one when it comes to educating new baseball fans about the history of the game and player evaluation.

And that’s why I’m a little skeptical heading into Moneyball, the movie.  There are too many ways it can fail in my view, and it will take some masterful writing to achieve something that is both enjoyable for the masses and fair to the baseball community.

Filed under Baseball Tagged with

MLB Realignment on Freakonomics

August 1, 2011 Leave a comment

From Freakonomics:

What proposed realignment changes seem to make the most sense from a competitive and economic standpoint for Major League Baseball?

If you’ve read through the five-part series explaining my own realignment proposal, you know it’s fairly radical, but you also know it addresses several issues that are important to both fans and MLB owners.  It increases the number of games (and thus, revenues) for most teams without lengthening the season and generates new interest on a host of different levels.

For the benefit of anyone who clicked through from my comment at Freakonomics, I’m editing and reposting the summary below and then linking all five parts for anyone who cares to read through the whole thing.

Summary

If you haven’t read the whole series, I am proposing that MLB separate the regular season and playoffs into two separate competitions that would run concurrently throughout the calendar year, resulting in an MLB Cup (playoff) champion and an MLB (regular season) League Championship that begins and ends at the same time of year as the current MLB structure.

The MLB Cup will take on a new feel compared to the current playoff structure, as a group-and-knockout competition not unlike UEFA’s Champions League for soccer.  Placement in this competition is based on the prior season’s MLB League Championship results.

Sixteen teams would contend for the MLB Cup, starting with eight automatic qualifiers from the prior season, and eight teams contesting the MLB Cup Qualification Playoff (MCQP) at the two main Spring Training sites in March.  The result is three tiers of teams: Elites, Contenders, and Regulars, each of which play a regional group competition culminating in a championship series, which takes place over the last two weeks of October.

The MLB League Championship would be organized geographically to take advantage of existing regional rivalries and perhaps open up some new ones.  Instead of trying to balance a 15-team league’s schedule with year-round interleague play, my proposal places a heavier emphasis on regional games and merges the two existing leagues into one for all practical purposes.

In this format, teams would play a minimum of 168 and a maximum of 183 games, with the difference representing the variable number of games in each Regional Championship series and the various tiers’ cup championships.  The entire season can be contested over the same time period as the current MLB season + one-half week, assuming the All-Star Break remains intact, and it will include more regular season off days than ever before (since over half the league currently won’t play at all in October).

Full posts

Part 1: Introduction (why realign?)
Part 2: The MLB Cup
Part 3: The MLB League Championship
Part 4: Revenue Sharing
Part 5: Summary and Conclusions (with advantages and disadvantages)

Filed under Baseball

MLB’s Better Way Forward: Summary and Conclusions (Part 5)

June 24, 2011 1 Comment

This week, I have progressively rolled out a radical realignment proposal for Major League Baseball.  I love baseball as it is, but I can’t help but think there are ways to make it better.  This series represents the current fruit from that ongoing thought process.

Summary – A Better Way Forward

If you haven’t been reading the whole series, I am proposing that MLB separate the regular season and playoffs into two separate competitions that would run concurrently throughout the calendar year, resulting in an MLB Cup (playoff) champion and an MLB (regular season) League Championship.

The MLB Cup will take on a new feel compared to the current playoff structure, as a group-and-knockout competition not unlike UEFA’s Champions League for soccer.  Placement in this competition is based on the prior season’s MLB League Championship results.

Sixteen teams would contend for the MLB Cup, starting with eight automatic qualifiers from the prior season, and eight teams contesting the MLB Cup Qualification Playoff (MCQP) at the two main Spring Training sites in March.  The result is three tiers of teams: Elites, Contenders, and Regulars, each of which play a regional group competition culminating in a championship series, which takes place over the last two weeks of October.

In this format, teams would play a minimum of 168 and a maximum of 183 games, with the difference representing the variable number of games in each Regional Championship series and the various tiers’ cup championships.  The entire season can be contested over the same time period as the current MLB season + one-half week, assuming the All-Star Break remains intact, and it will include more regular season off days than ever before (since over half the league currently won’t play at all in October).

Disadvantages

1. Tradition.  Nothing is easy about changing the way things have been done in MLB for years, and countless traditionalists will read this proposal and stop as soon as they realize I’m proposing the end of the AL, NL, and World Series.

I understand this completely.  I have grown up a fan of the Braves and the National League, firmly believing in the aesthetic superiority of a league that forces all nine hitters to play the field.  The World Series is an October tradition, and for the Braves of my youth, a team tradition.

Having said that, I clearly believe that there is a better way to handle the league in 2011 for the benefit of the most fans.  Baseball is a larger and more regional  (and national, and international) game than ever before, and I’m a firm believer in the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, make it as good as possible and highly unlikely to break in the future.”  That’s how it goes, right?

2. Less-instant gratification. The MLB League Championship, while determining placement for the following season’s MLB Cup, crowns only one champion.  This can seem anti-climactic for a seven-month-long season.

On the other hand, there are still conferences and divisions to be contested, although they have less importance than in the current format.  The cup competitions will serve as a season-long playoff, but they will be based on the prior season’s results.  Perhaps this won’t sit well with our culture that increasingly requires instant gratification, but I think we’ll adapt.

3. Unbalanced schedule.  If you’re going to have a 30-team league, you’d best accept the reality of an unbalanced schedule if you intend to maintain any semblance of rivalries and regional competition.  MLB currently understands this, so we have 18 games against division opponents and split the other half of the season across the rest of the league.  It’s still not the fairest way to declare a champion.

Advantages

1. Money, money, money.  Let’s face it: money talks.  MLB is not going to realign in a way that even begins to threaten the bottom line, so this proposal includes several different ways to minimize expenses and maximize revenues.

As we’ve discussed, the season increases from 162 games for most teams to 168, or in the eyes of owners, three extra home games.  Geographic realignment reduces travel expenses and maximizes fan and TV appeal with regional rivalries.

2. Scheduling flexibility.  The “free lunch” of more games and more off days is achieved by lengthening the part of the season in which everyone plays, from six to six-and-a-half months.  The result is more off days, which makes players and clubhouse managers happy, and it allows teams more chances to re-schedule games that are called off due to inclement weather without scheduling double-headers.

3. Quality of competition.  In the revenue sharing post, I explained how a Mariners team that entered 2011 with little hope of competing would perhaps be the favorite to win the MLB Cup Regulars Tier.  For weaker teams, this is a chance for fans and players to see more wins.  For Elites, the tougher schedule is balanced out by increased gate revenues from facing the likes of the Yankees and Red Sox more often.  As long as elite teams like those remain in the same tier, they can still expect to face one another 18+ times, or perhaps even more.  (Can you imagine an eight- or ten-game Regional Championship clinching series between those two at the end of September?)

4. Important games spread throughout the season.  No doubt you’ve heard about the “dog days” of August, as teams slog through the heat with little day-to-day variation in the schedule.  In this format, the flexible schedule and high importance of the MLB Cup means that we’ll have incredibly meaningful baseball games spread across the calendar.  The importance assigned to league play should help keep the rest of the games fresh as well.  Perhaps we will see new strategies, as teams focus their energies on one competition or the other (or balance between both).

5. A season-culminating “event” for traveling baseball fans, held in a predictable location.  The Super Bowl is a tremendous media blitz and popularity boon for the NFL, so why not recreate the “event” atmosphere for MLB’s championship?  The proposed structure still allows for home fans to get in on the action (the benefit of there being vastly more games in MLB), while fans of all types can plan in advance to see anywhere from three to fifteen games at the MLB Cup Series site.

Finally

Do I realistically expect Major League Baseball to accept such a radical change to the current format?  No, but my goal is to show that there is a way to accomplish several main objectives better than MLB currently does:

  1. Reward the best team over the course of the season with a championship.
  2. Make the playoffs more than just a crapshoot.
  3. Make the seven-month season more interesting from start to finish.
  4. Put enough financial muscle behind the plan that it can’t be roundly dismissed by profit-first owners.

In my mind, there’s no doubt that this plan accomplishes these objectives and more.

The floor has been open all week for discussion, but if you have particular issues you’d like to discuss that haven’t already been addressed, this is the place for that discussion.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks go out to Doug Sparks for being a sounding board and inspiration for many of the ideas comprising this proposal.

Filed under Baseball Tagged with , , , , ,

MLB’s Better Way Forward: Revenue Sharing (Part 4)

June 23, 2011 1 Comment

The last post outlined the competitive structure of the MLB League Championship, which I will simply call the League or “league play.”  In forming one 30-team championship format separate from the playoff structure, the concern is that teams out of the MLB Cup Elites tier will lose interest, destroying fan attendance and franchise profitability.

Before we proceed further, let me suggest a few reasons why that might not be the case.

Regional is better.

The unbalanced regional schedule offers more geographically-relevant matchups.  That means more (or at least the same) local rivalries, where those exist (Cubs-White Sox, Yankees-Mets, Yankees-Red Sox, etc.), and more matchups within the same time zone.

For instance, the Giants play at least one road series against NL East teams in a given year, with perhaps one such road interleague series, totaling 21 or so East Coast road games starting at potentially awkward times for West Coast TV.  In the new regular season schedule, they would play 15 at most, unless they are lumped into the eastern group for cup purposes.

When the Giants are in contention, fans will almost certainly show up, but if they’re not, there will be fewer awkward TV times and more games against regionally relevant teams like the A’s and Angels (along with existing division rivals like the Dodgers and Padres).  Regional games would seem to be a win both for fans and TV, not to mention the travel schedule.

More winnable/competitive games.

Another win for the fans is having more games against teams of a similar talent level.  In a cup competition with the likes of Houston, San Diego, Arizona, and Kansas City, the Mariners have a competition in which they will be competitive in 2011, not to mention a few years from now when Pineda and Ackley will be in their respective primes.  All of a sudden, this becomes a team that can reasonably expect to play at least .500 baseball at home, and fans can react accordingly.

For more competitive teams like the Phillies, it’s an embarrassment of riches to see a schedule filled with games against the Mets, Yankees, and Red Sox, even if it is a very tough schedule to play through.  The Blue Jays, still stuck in a tough division for scheduling purposes, can hope to contend on a league-wide basis and use their cup competition as a springboard to future success.

Revenue Sharing

The last of these reasons is a new proposal for MLB’s existing revenue sharing system.  I’m not a huge fan of MLB’s revenue sharing in general, as there is no reason that the Pirates should be able to rake in the profits without having seen on-field success since the Barry Bonds era.

The current revenue sharing system, as I understand it, works like this: 31% of all team revenues go to a shared fund which is then redistributed equally among teams.  The primary result of this practice is lower player salaries, since it artificially creates lower marginal returns for investing in players.

What I propose instead is that teams are awarded revenue sharing dollars on the following bases:

  1. Total player salaries, coach salaries, and player development expenses — in other words, money spent on improving the on-field product.
  2. League standing and cup finish relative to major league player salaries — succeeding on the field on a per-dollar basis.

The system can still be based on team revenue, but at least there will be an incentive for owners to reinvest in the product quality year after year, rather than simply pocket other teams’ profits.  Set a minimum requirement for both of the above criteria, and you have a firm incentive for continued success.

If possible from a legal standpoint, I would try to enforce this with a further opt-out requirement for owners who fail to invest in their teams.  Put more simply, kick out the owners who remain in the MLB Cup Regulars Tier for an extended period of time (say, seven years).  Owners should be able to collectively agree on this provision, since the other owners’ poor management devalues the MLB product overall.

With this as a backbone for revenue sharing, teams in all tiers will have to focus on their league result, or they will risk falling further behind their rivals.

Tomorrow, I will wrap up this series with a summary of advantages and disadvantages to the entire realignment proposal.

Filed under Baseball Tagged with , , , , ,

MLB’s Better Way Forward: MLB League Championship (Part 3)

June 22, 2011 1 Comment

The MLB League Championship should have a familiar feel.  The new wrinkle we’ve added with the MLB Cup, though, will force a shorter regular season, at least in number of games.  It will actually be longer in terms of the calendar, since the two competitions run concurrently.

Scheduling

This seems as appropriate a time as any to discuss the schedule.  One complaint lodged against playoff expansion in MLB is that the season is already too long.  “No more November baseball!” is the cry we hear from some, and it’s a valid complaint to the extent that it’s uncomfortable for everyone to play in 40-degree weather and virtually impossible to play in snow.

One of the beautiful things about a concurrent playoff and regular season format is that, even with the championship series standing alone at the end, there are two extra weeks when everyone can play.  That has at least two major implications:

  1. More games can be played by non-MLB Cup Elite teams.
  2. There can be more off-days between games during the season.

This is huge, because it allows us to make both players and owners even happier, and it gives us as fans more baseball to watch.

My proposal is a 138-game regular season, with all 30 teams in one group for the purpose of determining the final league standings.  The MLB Cup allows this to work aesthetically.  It’s not as though the 24th-best team has nothing to play for; rather, they can shoot for 20th and make the MLB Cup Contenders tier for the following season, leading to more games against good teams.  We’ll get into incentives a little more in a later post, but here’s how the schedule would break down.

Unbalanced Schedule

With 30 teams in MLB, the schedule almost has to be unbalanced in order to work.  Otherwise, you end up with teams facing one another just once or twice a year outside the cup format.  Instead of the traditional AL and NL, I think the new league should be organized geographically to make the most of regional rivalries in what has become an increasingly-regional game.

I know traditionalists are going to balk at ending the traditional two leagues, but other than the DH difference, do baseball fans as a whole really care about the league championship anymore?  At least, do they care about it more than they would, say, an MLB Cup Regional Championship?  I think the answer is no.  The casual fan especially doesn’t care, and you and I can get over our affinities (mine for the NL), since we’re already used to a heavy dose of interleague play.

I propose that we break the leagues into three geographic regions.  We’ll call them Conferences for simplicity’s sake: an Eastern Conference, Central Conference, and Western Conference.  These conferences are then broken into two Divisions of five teams each.  The final result is below.

Eastern Conference

Northeast Division: Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, New York Mets, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies
Southeast Division: Baltimore Orioles, Washington Nationals, Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, Florida Marlins

Central Conference

Mideast Division: Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins, Pittsburgh Pirates
Midwest Division: Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, Kansas City Royals, St. Louis Cardinals

Western Conference

Frontier Division: Houston Astros, Texas Rangers, Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks, Seattle Mariners
California Division: San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, San Diego Padres

Notice the similarity to Jim Bowden’s idea.  I would disagree with much of the rest of his plan, but dividing the teams by geography works remarkably well for this purpose.  In this alignment, major rivalries are maintained: Yanks/Red Sox, Cubs/Cardinals, and the like.  Many of the current divisional rivalries are maintained, at least within the conference, if not the division.  When we “unbalance” the schedule in this fashion, we end up with a lot more interesting regional matchups.

138 Games

Here’s how the schedule would work:
Division games: 4 teams x 12 games (2x home-and-home series of 3 games) = 48 games
Conference games: 5 teams x 6 games (1x home-and-home 3-game series) = 30 games
Non-conference games: 20 teams x 3 games (home series alternating yearly) = 60 games
Total of 138 games (46 3-game series, played over 23 weeks)

Notice that playing 138 games over 23 weeks allows for 23 off-days, an increase of 8 compared to the current schedule of 162 games.  The result is more days for travel and rest, which is something players and teams alike should love.

The final schedule, when combined with MLB Cup games, will increase the number of home games for each team to a minimum of 84: 69 league home games, and at least 15 in the MLB Cup.  At most, a team will play 183 games (compared to 181 currently), but all teams will see an increase from 162 to at least 168, meaning more revenue for all teams.

Due to the concurrent scheduling, all of this is accomplished within the current calendar structure, extending it by a mere half-week on the front end.  See the Schedule Example tab in the accompanying Excel File for a more detailed example.

Qualifying for the MLB Cup

Now the elephant in the room is this: if we’re splitting the playoffs into another competition entirely, how do we make the regular season important?  I’ve already addressed one of these ways briefly, saying that we divide teams into three tiers for the MLB Cup based on regular-season finish from the prior season.  Let’s go into a little more detail about how that might work:

  1. The top eight teams in the MLB League Championship automatically qualify for the MLB Cup Elites Tier for the following season.
  2. Two more teams qualify for the MLB Cup Elites Tier based on what we’ll call the MLB Cup Qualification Playoff (MCQP for short).
  3. The next ten teams not qualifying for the Elites Tier are in the Contenders Tier, and the last ten teams are placed in the Regulars Tier.

The result is a stratification of MLB teams for the MLB Cup based on the MLB League Championship.  Before we dive into that aspect of it, how is the MCQP going to work?

MLB Cup Qualification Playoff (MCQP)

In order to keep things interesting among the lower tiers, those teams will be allowed to “play in” to the MLB Cup Elites Tier based on their performance in the prior season’s cup competition.  The MCQP will take the first eight teams from the following group, based on the prior season, excepting those who have already qualified by finishing in the League Championship top eight or by a previous step in the process below:

  1. (Max. one team) Winner of the MLB Cup Regulars Tier
  2. (Two teams) Regional winners of the Contenders Tier
  3. (One team) Winner of the MLB Cup Series
  4. (One team) Runner-up from the MLB Cup Series
  5. (Two teams) Teams with the best record in their MLB League Championship conference
  6. (Three teams) Teams with the best record in their MLB League Championship division
  7. (Five teams) Top remaining teams finishing 9-13 in the MLB League Championship

These eight teams will be grouped by region, and because this competition would take place toward the end of Spring Training, they would be grouped by Spring Training site, four teams at each location (Florida/Arizona).  Preference would be granted to teams with a higher league finish, in the event that there are more than four qualifying teams from one site (lower finishers travel).

The MCQP would be a preseason “event” to take place at either Chase Field, for Arizona teams, or Tropicana Field/Miami (as yet unnamed) Ballpark for Florida teams.  The format would be the same as the College World Series regional tournaments: double-elimination among the four teams.  Winners at each regional site advance to the Elites Tier, and the remaining teams are placed into the Contenders and Regulars tiers.

There will be a lot of dynamics in play over the course of the season as a result of this format.  Teams will have to choose whether to burn their ace pitcher on a League game, or go for it in the cup competition with the hope of having more games against good teams in the following year.

With qualification for the Elites tier reaching down to the 13th-placed team (or below), most teams will have something to play for, even late into the MLB League season.  Winning the Division or Conference will still have meaning, as those winners will qualify (based on overall record) before it is simply treated as an extended Wild Card.  Championship teams facing a decline from one year to the next will also still have a chance to defend their title in the MLB Cup.

Of course, there are some competitive consequences that would arise from stratifying the MLB clubs further into Elites, Contenders, and Regulars, even if hope remains in the cup competition for lower-tier teams.  In the next post, I will specifically address that concern with an idea to revamp MLB’s existing revenue sharing program.

Filed under Baseball Tagged with , , , , ,

← Older posts

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 248 other followers