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You better start swimmin'
Jun. 17th, 2008 11:59 pm
Currently at Toronto Pearson: 11. High today: 17.
Vancouver weather caught up with us, after about the thunderstormiest few days around here I could recall. Yesterday I saw a full horizon-to-horizon double rainbow for the first time probably since I was in highschool, and I saw something I've never seen before: the moon, waxing gibbous, rising from behind a receding cumulonimbus cloud. That was actually shocking: I saw it as a bit of the cloud puffing out, and then it was the moon. Another thing I saw today that I haven't seen in a long time: wild roses blooming, down in the ravine.
So, after only, I dunno, 2.5 years of serious job-hunting, I've made a short list. Not for a tenure-track job, mind you, but it's always good to leave plenty of room for progress. Also not for a Canadian job (which makes it a good thing that it's not for a tenure-track job). I would like to take this opportunity to note that no one is allowed to move (further) away from Seattle until I know that I will not be working there next year.
This is the sort of thing that, you know, should be pleasing. It is in fact pleasing when I think about it abstractly and not concretely. This news naturally comes the day after I've signed my "offer of appointment" for my 0.5 courses at York next year, and finally gotten around to opening an account at the credit union at York. Clearly, if I don't get this job, I just need to step up my measures to entrench myself at York, and then the job offers will come flooding in.
But enough trivia; back to the serious business of whether good pitching beats good hitting and all that. I hypothesized that the success of good-pitching teams at winning pennants and World Series relative to good-htting teams was due to good-pitching teams' generally being better at hitting than good-hitting teams are at pitching. However, the first bit of data I've collected doesn't particularly bear this out. Again using the years 2000-2007, American League leaders in runs scored averaged 5.75th in the league in ERA; AL leaders in ERA averaged 7.125th in runs scored. NL runs-scored leaders averaged 11th in ERA; NL ERA leaders averaged 9.25th in runs scored. So, overall, league leaders in runs scored averaged 8.375th in ERA; league leaders in ERA averaged 8.1875th in runs scored. Essentially the same.
One thing that does stand out from these numbers: teams that lead the AL in ERA or runs scored are usually aren't worse than mediocre in the other category; teams that lead the NL in ERA or runs scored are often lousy on the other side. This seems mostly attributable to two things: first, nobody dominates the NL like the Yankees and Red Sox (and, for one year, Mariners) have dominated the AL (although the Braves and Cardinals have done it for short spurts), and second, the NL has had three teams--Colorado, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati--with stats skewed in favour of offense by their home ballparks. Those three NL teams led the league in runs scored in five of the eight years, and finished no better than 11th in ERA; twice they finished 16th and last. Where the AL ERA leader's runs scored dips into the lower half of the league, it's generally Oakland, who play in what seems to be easily the most pitcher-friendly park in the AL (though it's still not as pitcher-friendly as San Diego, which accounts for a couple of the NL ERA leaders' lower-tier runs-scored placings).
To be continued! (Which of course signals that you will never hear anything about this from me again.)
Vancouver weather caught up with us, after about the thunderstormiest few days around here I could recall. Yesterday I saw a full horizon-to-horizon double rainbow for the first time probably since I was in highschool, and I saw something I've never seen before: the moon, waxing gibbous, rising from behind a receding cumulonimbus cloud. That was actually shocking: I saw it as a bit of the cloud puffing out, and then it was the moon. Another thing I saw today that I haven't seen in a long time: wild roses blooming, down in the ravine.
So, after only, I dunno, 2.5 years of serious job-hunting, I've made a short list. Not for a tenure-track job, mind you, but it's always good to leave plenty of room for progress. Also not for a Canadian job (which makes it a good thing that it's not for a tenure-track job). I would like to take this opportunity to note that no one is allowed to move (further) away from Seattle until I know that I will not be working there next year.
This is the sort of thing that, you know, should be pleasing. It is in fact pleasing when I think about it abstractly and not concretely. This news naturally comes the day after I've signed my "offer of appointment" for my 0.5 courses at York next year, and finally gotten around to opening an account at the credit union at York. Clearly, if I don't get this job, I just need to step up my measures to entrench myself at York, and then the job offers will come flooding in.
But enough trivia; back to the serious business of whether good pitching beats good hitting and all that. I hypothesized that the success of good-pitching teams at winning pennants and World Series relative to good-htting teams was due to good-pitching teams' generally being better at hitting than good-hitting teams are at pitching. However, the first bit of data I've collected doesn't particularly bear this out. Again using the years 2000-2007, American League leaders in runs scored averaged 5.75th in the league in ERA; AL leaders in ERA averaged 7.125th in runs scored. NL runs-scored leaders averaged 11th in ERA; NL ERA leaders averaged 9.25th in runs scored. So, overall, league leaders in runs scored averaged 8.375th in ERA; league leaders in ERA averaged 8.1875th in runs scored. Essentially the same.
One thing that does stand out from these numbers: teams that lead the AL in ERA or runs scored are usually aren't worse than mediocre in the other category; teams that lead the NL in ERA or runs scored are often lousy on the other side. This seems mostly attributable to two things: first, nobody dominates the NL like the Yankees and Red Sox (and, for one year, Mariners) have dominated the AL (although the Braves and Cardinals have done it for short spurts), and second, the NL has had three teams--Colorado, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati--with stats skewed in favour of offense by their home ballparks. Those three NL teams led the league in runs scored in five of the eight years, and finished no better than 11th in ERA; twice they finished 16th and last. Where the AL ERA leader's runs scored dips into the lower half of the league, it's generally Oakland, who play in what seems to be easily the most pitcher-friendly park in the AL (though it's still not as pitcher-friendly as San Diego, which accounts for a couple of the NL ERA leaders' lower-tier runs-scored placings).
To be continued! (Which of course signals that you will never hear anything about this from me again.)
