Andy Boyer

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Category: Sports (Page 4 of 18)

What is a Winning Football Team Worth to Seattle

January 22, 2015 /

There’s a guy at my gym who fancies himself as somewhat of a philosopher. His podium is the sauna, where he knows he has a captive audience of helpless people who have no other place to get a good sweat.

I call him “Sauna Sam” and he adds as much to the world’s philosophical endeavors as I do to nuclear engineering. The beauty of Sauna Sam is that the more conviction he has about a topic, the less he actually knows about it.

How does this relate to football? Bear with me a moment.

For some reason, I have no actual downloaded media on my phone. I live in an all-stream kind of world I suppose. And of course, there’s no internet in the sauna. So how annoying is Sauna Sam? I will actually put on my headset, open up video games on my phone, and listen to the minute long introductory music from the game’s home screen 10 times rather than listen to Sam.

So yesterday I’m fumbling around, desperately trying to find a game with a loud soundtrack, and before I can get there, I have to hear Sam’s latest rant, directed at no one in particular other than that poor sap that made the mistake of making eye contact and now was looking for a back door to sneak out of.

Sam is ranting about how the mainstream media has brainwashed all the pacifists and progressive minds in Seattle to support a sport that is all about barbarianism. He mocks Seattle for spending their money to placate millionaires and billionaires running a fascist business in which people purposely and willfully attempt to hurt each other.

Being the open minded soul that I am, I tried to embrace this line of thought. Concussions are certainly a bad thing. Domestic Violence is definitely bad. Shootings, drug use, steroids, these are all negative things that NFL players can become known for.

So then I looked at the other side. There are very few times in my life when I have felt such irrational exuberance as I did Sunday afternoon in Century Link. At several moments in that game, I shared emotions with 65,000 other people. Surprise at an early Russel Wilson interception, relief that the Packers only had 2 field goals, depression on the interception with 5:00 left, hope when the Seahawks got the ball back, excitement when they scored, celebration when they got the onside kick, pure disbelief when they took the lead, a nervous sigh when they gave up the field goal, a tempered optimism when they won the overtime coin flip, and unbridled jubilation when they got the touchdown.

That my friends, is a roller coaster of human emotions. And I didn’t go through them by myself. I had 65,000 neighbors with me. Throughout those last 5:00, all of strangers hugged, high-fived, stared open mouth in disbelief, danced and smiled like we just learned how.

So obviously, I am one of the brain washed. One of the NFL’s minions who receive joy from watching grown men fight on a field of battle. Right, Sam?

Well I think that idea is garbage. Football is dangerous, not all of the players are upstanding citizens and there are definite health risks you take by being hit by large, structurally sound men in return for a million dollar paycheck.

But barbaric? The Roman Colosseum was barbaric. Dog fighting is barbaric. Football is dangerous. Football takes bravery. But no one is supposed to die playing football.

All of the players on that field were doing things that you and I could never imagine doing. The discipline and training it takes is more than we can comprehend. The 65,000 people sitting in Century Link, and the hundreds of thousands watching at home, wanted their team to be braver, stronger, faster and smarter than the other guys risking their health to win a game. And not just this week, but over the last 18 weeks.

But these are our guys. And we’re proud that they wear a Seattle jersey. And so we will do whatever small part we can to contribute. That means being loud when the team needs a pick me up. It means being louder when we can affect the other team. It means losing all sanity and rational thought and truly believing we are part of the team, the collective 12th man.

And that’s what the team means to the city. We all have our different political views, jobs, education, etc… But Seattleites – and the region around us – all have a singular bond if we choose to embrace it. We are the 12th Man. Together. It makes us stronger as a city, and closer as a population.

It’s too bad Sauna Sam wants to focus on the negative. He is really missing out on how cool it is to be part of this community.

What’s Up With the Mariners Spending Spree?

December 9, 2014 /

To get things started, let’s be clear that I have no insight, intelligence or idea why the Mariners are suddenly spending like a drunken sailor on shore leave. $100 million for Seeger, $60 million for Cruz, maybe more for Cabrera. This is very un-Mariner like. So let’s speculate on a few reasons this is happening.

1) They’ve saved up a war chest that we cannot even imagine.
The Mariners have been bad bad bad for a long long time. Sure they had a couple of years between 2004 and 2013 of relative mediocrity. But after winning 93 games in 2002 and 2003, they finished above .500 two years out of 10. Heck they finished under .400 three times. All told they won just 44$ of their games. And yet they still made money. Year after year of cash registers firing all season long. It’s possible that they have so much money saved up, that now they have a chance to win, they are going all in. Budgets be damned.

2) There’s a new sheriff in Japan.
Mariners savior, long time owner and Safeco Field no-show Hiroshi Yamauchi died in Sept 2013. According to Wikipedia, he sold his shares to Nintendo in 2004, stayed on the Nintendo board and was tasked with running the team while he was alive. Of course, we know that the Operations were run by Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong (since retired). But maybe this non-baseball fan was just managing to the bottom line. I don’t know how the transition process worked after his death, but we can make a pretty safe assumption that someone new on the Nintendo board is in charge. Maybe they like baseball? Or coming to Seattle? Or coming to baseball games in Seattle? Or meeting baseball players? Or meeting Jay-z and Beyonce? Who knows.

3) Howard Lincoln is retiring soon?
If I was the long-time CEO of the Mariners, I would not want my Wikipedia profile to read, “Boyer ran the Mariners for 15 years, the longest tenure of any CEO to not make a World Series.” Let’s say that Lincoln has an expiration date on his Mariners tenure. That would accelerate his will to win in the next 2 years, not keep building the war chest.

Chuck Armstrong was the one who refused to spend any money?
Armstrong retired last year. Maybe he was the guy hiding all the money under the mattress.

4) Felix handed down an ultimatum?
We all wondered why the best pitcher in baseball would sign a long-term deal that pretty much eliminates him from ever being qualified for the Hall of Fame. I’m not going to go ALL stats geek here but from 2006-2013, the Mariners went 586-710 (.452). Felix was 106-82 (.563) with a ridiculous ERA of 3.22. So in the games Felix DIDN’T get a decision, the Mariners were 480-628 (.433). Let’s make up some calculations. Pretend the Mariners could be .500 in games Felix didn’t pitch. That would get them another 71 wins, or 15% more. So let’s do the same thing with Felix. Give him 15% more wins. Now instead of 106-82, he’s 122-66. The Mariners ineptitude for 8 years basically cost him 16 wins – or 2 wins a year. If he pitches for 18 years at that pace it takes him from a 239 win pitching version of Edgar to a 275 win pitcher with HoF aspirations.

5) All of the above
Is it unreasonable to think that the Mariners are a franchise with buckets and buckets and buckets of $1000 bills buried under 2nd base, a new TV deal that will make them even MORE money, an “owner” in Japan who is younger and more interested in the fun part of winning baseball games, an outgoing CEO who wants a legacy, a void in the front office where a penny pincher used to sit and a superstar “face of the franchise” who demanded they make some changes for him to stay a few years ago? That’s where I fall on this. We may have a super fun run from 2015-2017. I wonder what happens when the Perfect Storm subsides…

How Bad Will the 2022 Qatar World Cup Team Be?

July 10, 2014 /

The 2022 World Cup has been a controversial subject for a few years now, and will only become more so as more people call upon FIFA to change the location from Qatar. But here’s a sub-topic that came up in discussion last night, and I haven’t seen too much on it yet.

As host country, Qatar gets an automatic bid to the tournament, the same way Brazil, South Africa, Germany, Korea & Japan, France, the USA and Italy did, going back to 1990. Now, most of those teams were WC regulars or had at least been to a Finals before, so it was no big deal.

But we’re in uncharted waters, er desert, with Qatar. Let’s look at the Qatar National Team and some World Cup history.

  1. Qatar is currently ranked #100 by FIFA. For comparison that is between Zimbabwe (99) and Moldova (101).
  2. The lowest ranked team at the 2014 World Cup was Australia at #62. Australia went 0-0-3, scoring 3 goals and giving up 9 to the Netherlands, Chile and Spain. The next lowest seeded teams were Korea (57), Cameroon (56), Japan (46), Nigeria (44) and Iran (43). Those teams combined to go (1-4-11) with a Minus 18 Goal Differential.  (Note: Iran and Nigeria tied each other so if you pull those games out the 5 teams went 1-2-11.)
  3. In the history of the World Cup, the host nation with the worst ranking was South Africa in 2010. South Africa tied Mexico 1-1, got drubbed by Uruguay 3-0 and finished by beating a French team that had sent some of its players and a coach home early, 2-1.
  4. In 2014 World Cup qualifying, Qatar was ranked as the #8 Asian team, and survived a 3rd round group of Bahrain (5 ), Iran (7) and Indonesia (24.) Their record of 2-4-0 netted them 10 points to finish 2nd behind Iran (3-3-0), and advanced them to the 4th round, eliminating the favored Bahrain (2-3-1) in the process. In the 4th round, they finished out of contention in 4th place (at 2-1-5) behind Iran (7), South Korea (2) and Uzbekistan (9), and ahead of Lebanon (20.)

So what might happen in the next 8 years? Is it conceivable that a country investing Billions into hosting a World Cup might also invest in strengthening their National team? Could money talk and lure some of the top 14-18 year-olds in Asia and Africa to train in a newly developed Qatar Football Training Facility? Could Qatar become close to par with the top Asian Football squads – Japan, South Korea and Australia?

Perhaps. My friend Alex posits that Qatar will simply pay their Group Stage competitors not to drub them too badly. Give them $1MM for a 3-0 loss, $500k for a 4-0 loss and nothing for 5-0 or worse.

But barring a miracle, it seems that Group A in 2022 will be wide open, with all the other teams being assured an easy win over Qatar, and it could be important how much they win the game by.  It’s also conceivable that we’ll see the worst showing ever by a World Cup Finals team.

Trying to Decipher MLS Transfer Rules

July 3, 2014 /

Here’s something about MLS I don’t quite understand. DeAndre Yedlin could be headed to Anderlecht of the Belgian League. A friend of mine who knows a ton about soccer asked this series of questions:

Is this a big step up for Yedlin? I’m sure he’d get a raise, but I’m sure he could get a raise in MLS too. But in terms of advancing his career, does it make sense to go to a second tier (or third, or fourth?) Europe league? Or should he try to get a decent MLS salary after this year, and wait until England calls And what would the Sounders get out of this? Do they get any of the transfer fee? Do they get to set the transfer fee? Are we just out of luck? And we’re full on designated players too, right? So even if we got a ton of cash, we can’t really use it, right?

Here’s what I think I know. Please correct me if you know better.

1) Whether or not the play in Belgium is better than the MLS, there’s the perception in Europe that the play in the Dutch, Turkish, Norwegian, Belgian and Portuguese leagues is better than the MLS.

2) It’s easier for a Premier League, Spanish League, German League, Italian League or French League scout to catch a game in Belgium than Seattle.

3) The top teams in all the 2nd tier Europe Leagues at least get to compete in some round of the Champions League. Anderlecht won the Belgian First Division in 2013-2014, and are one of 22 teams to have already qualified for the Final 32 of the Champions League. That’s nice exposure he wouldn’t get here.

4) The MLS technically owns all the contracts of all the players. Essentially, the MLS is a giant talent agency that hosts matches in which to show off the talent they’ve recruited. Part of their revenue model is to find cheap players and develop them into players that other teams want to buy. They need the old guys to drive fans, but the real money is buying young guys low and selling high. It’s another reason the league wants parity and would rather have all the best players split amongst the teams to get playing time rather than having some great players sitting on the Sounders bench behind Dempsey and Martins for 34 games

5) There’s some sort of revenue split between the MLS and the team who scouts and signs the player. Not sure what it is.

6) MLS sets the transfer fee. I believe the team has some input based on whether they think the team and league would generate more revenue if they held the player another year.

7) Sounders would get some cash, but all it would do is help the ownership group. We can’t reinvest it into a higher salary cap.

Bottom line, the more Yedlins the league develops, the more revenue the league makes, the more revenue the teams split, the more designated players the teams can afford to have on each roster, the higher salary cap each team can have, and the more talent we can recruit to the league, which makes it easier to get the next Yedlin to play here, etc…

Let me know if you have more insight.

 

Friday Fun – What It Would Take to Make the Mariners the Top Hitting Team in Baseball

April 25, 2014 /

I’ll preface this by saying that this will not be the most complex baseball analysis you’ve ever read. I understand that to make this worth anything, I’d need to factor in stadium anomalies, opposing pitcher records and fielding statistics. If you want an exotic smorgasboard of premium baseball analysis, I suggest heading over to the U.S.S. Mariner.com. Consider my contribution here the baseball equivalent of a food truck.

But this week I wondered aloud, what would it take for the Mariners to be the best hitting team in baseball? Are we one player away or nine? I really didn’t know so I dusted off my excel spreadsheet for this totally unscientific report.

The test is simple. If we replaced the lowest performing Mariners starter with the best hitter in baseball, how would team stats change? Then, how many times do we have to do that to be among the top?

Step 1: Where are we today?

Let’s take a look at the MLB Team Batting Averages, ranked 1-30. (Yes, I know Batting Average is an antiquated way to calculate offensive performance. Remember, I’m only working with a food truck kitchen.)

Major_League_Baseball_Team_Averages_April_25

 

Step 2: What do our individual stats look like?

So here’s a quick look at the Mariners batting stats. I highlighted the starters, because that’s really the analysis we need to do. There are 8 clear starters, and 4 players who seem to regularly rotate around as that 9th player in the lineup, and a few guys with a couple of at bats each. So for the purpose of this discussion, which is trading one starter for another, we’ll only work with the 8 regulars.

Mariners_Averages_April_25

 

Step 3: What happens when we trade our lowest performing starter for the leading hitter in baseball?

Again, we’re ranking the best hitter by average, not WAR, OPS or anything complex. Right now, that guy is Charlie Blackmon of the Colorado Rockies, who is off to a blistering .410 start. So here’s our new roster, subbing Blackmon for our lowest average starter, Kyle Seager.

Mariners_Averages_April_25_Blackmon

Our average jumped 24 points to .246. So by replacing our worst hitter with MLB’s best, we’ve only made it to 18th on the list.

 

Step 4:  What happens when we trade our two lowest performing starters for the two leading hitters in baseball?

Once again we head to Colorado, where we are kidnapping Troy Tulowitski and putting him on a cargo plane north. This time it’s Brad Miller who is getting our ax.

Mariners_Averages_April_25_Tulowitski

We’ve now jumped to .267 which puts us a very respectable 7th in the league. So what does it take to get to the top?

 

Step 5:  What happens when we trade our THREE lowest performing starters for the THREE leading hitters in baseball?

Say good-bye to Abraham Almonte and please welcome Dayan Viciedo and his .377 average to the Pacific Northwest.

Mariners_Averages_April_25_Viciedo

We’ve now swapped out 33.3% of our starting lineup, and raised our batting average 63 points. And yet, that still keeps us behind the League Leading Colorado Rockies. (And yes, I know that if we took two guys off their roster they wouldn’t be at .301 anymore. Just go with it.)

 

Bonus Section:

I have the spreadsheet built, so let’s do one more just for fun. Suppose we didn’t attain the three top hitters in baseball in what surely would be the savviest three-way trade in the history of baseball. Suppose we just ended up with three hitters who were at the MLB average replacing our lowest three.

Now, this is a little wonky, because I took the MLB averages for all the teams combined, and then divided those by 9. The reasoning is that each team has 9 spots in the batting order, so it’s a fair approximation of what the average player on the average team would do if he played in every game.

Mariners_Averages_April_25_Average

You see we jump up to .241, which only gets us in a tie for 22nd with Arizona.

 

Conclusion:

So how far are the Mariners away from having an offense that strikes fear into opposing pitcher rather than just striking out? Well, we are clearly more than 3 average hitters away. And it’s unlikely we’ll get the three top hitters. So we need at least three well above average hitters to dent the top 10.

If you have a Dropbox account, you can download the spreadsheet here. I don’t know why the numbers look weird in View mode.

Deciphering the Online Ticket Broker Algorithm

March 26, 2014 /

Online ticket brokers such as StubHub.com have been around long enough that they are a standard ticket buying or selling experience for many fans.

Can’t make a game – stick the tix on StubHub. Need tix for a game – grab them off StubHub.

The model is brilliant. They charge the seller 15% commission, and then they charge the buyer a 15% tax as well. Say you post 2 tickets for $50 ea, so $100 total. The buyer sees a price of $57.50 each and pays $115, with StubHub taking the extra $15. Then StubHub sends you a check for $85, keeping the extra $15. That’s a 30% commission on 2 tickets changing hands. But the program is still the easiest marketplace around.

But there’s an interesting next level to this marketplace. How do the sellers decide when to post and how much to offer?

This Thursday and Saturday, the NCAA West Regional will be in Anaheim, CA. Two of the participants, San Diego St and Arizona have large alumni bases within driving distance. The Arena holds 14,000 people and is officially sold out. On Monday morning, the lowest ticket price on StubHub was about $225 and there were about 790 tickets.

Since then, the number of available tickets has fallen to between 450-500, but never lower. Meanwhile, the price has dipped into the $150’s. So while theoretically the supply is falling, so is the price.

So who is keeping the supply set at around 500? How many tickets are actually being moved? It looks like StubHub is automatically dropping the prices by a certain % every few hours. Then when old tickets get purchased, new ones are getting posted by the brokers. That way there’s never a listed supply that encourages people to keep waiting. The incentive is to jump on the listed price before the supply dwindles more.

So I wonder if it’s StubHub limiting supply, or the brokers themselves. Based on its 15% x 2 commission model, StubHub certainly has the incentive to keep prices as high as possible. But it also has incentive to make sure all the tickets get sold. So somewhere is a Pareto optimal equation for StubHub that isn’t necessarily optimal for buyers and sellers.

I assume they don’t open up their API’s, otherwise someone would have built the “Farecast for StubHub” by now. Until they do, all you can do is keep an eye on it yourself.

Here’s Your 2014 Sounders Transactions Merry-Go-Round, In One Easy List

March 2, 2014 /

Using the Seattle Times as a source, here’s as close as I can get to a complete list of how your old 2013 Sounders became your NEW 2014 Sounders. For the purpose of this list, I’m mainly only counting players who actually played or are expected to play.

If you remember, we ended 2013 on a sad note. Here’s what the roster looked like as the players packed up their gear in October 2013 (Starter types listed first).
GK: Gspurning, Hahnemann, Ford, Weber
DEF: Yedlin, Hurtado, Traore, Gonzales, Scott, Ianni, Burch, Remick
MID: Alonso, Evans, Rosales (c), Neagle, Moffat, Rose, Caskey, Joseph, Zakuani
FOR: Dempsey, Johnson, Martins, Estrada, Zavaleta (Note: I’m not sure when Ochoa was released.)
Non-Factors: Lund, Bates

So let’s see what happened next:
11/19: Alonso gets a new contract with a DP slot.
11/20: Evans gets long-term deal.
These two things mean that Dempsey, Martins and Alonso are your 3 DP’s, and Evans is presumably taking a good sized share of the salary cap. So now the team needs to trim payroll.

So…
12/10: OUT: Michael Gspurning, March Burch, Steve Zakuani

12/11: OUT: Mauro Rosales to Chivas USA
12/11: IN: FOR Tristan Bowen from Chivas USA and No. 2 in Allocation Order
The Rosales deal ends up being very interesting for the Sounders. Chivas takes on an older, expensive player, gives up a younger, cheaper one, AND gives Seattle a high spot in the Allocation order, which becomes interesting later. Then later in the off-season, Chivas ownership sells the team back to the league.

12/10: IN: GK Stefan Frei TO Sounders from Toronto for 2015 1st Round Pick
12/12: IN: DEF Chad Marshall TO Seattle from Columbus for 2015 3rd round pick and Sounders Allocation placement
Remember, the Sounders got Chivas’ Allocation placement, so now they didn’t need theirs. Gspurning’s salary goes to Frei. Burch’s to Marshall (roughly).

12/12: Ford gets new deal to be 3rd string Goalie
12/13: IN: FOR Kenny Cooper to Seattle from Houston for Adam Moffat
12/16: Gonzales gets a new 1 year deal

12/17: OUT: Johnson to DC for allocation money
This has to happen because the team can’t afford Evans AND Johnson as non DP’s.

12/18: IN: FOR Chad Barrett via re-entry draft

1/6: Neagle gets extension
1/8: Hahnemann gets extension
1/9: IN: Homegrown players Sean Okoli and Aaron Kovar

1/16: OUT: Hurtado and Ianni (and No 13 Pick in 2014 Draft) to Chicago
1/16: IN: DEF Jalil Anibaba (and No 8 pick in 2014 Draft) from Chicago
This is a 2 for 1 deal. Sounders have too many center backs and need to cut some more costs.

1/31: IN: MID Marco Pappa via Allocation Draft
Remember the Rosales for Bowen deal? Now, it’s become Rosales for Bowen and Pappa. Nice.

2/28: OUT: Zavaleta loaned to Chivas USA
Now, that deal has sort of become Rosales and Zavaleta (on loan) for Bowen and Pappa.

Undated: OUT: Joseph training with New England

Grand total
OUT: Gspurning, Hurtado, Ianni, Burch, Joseph, Rosales, Zakuani, Johnson, Zavaleta (Loan)
IN: Frei, Marshall, Anibaba, Pappa, Cooper, Barrett, Bowen, Okoli, Kovar
KEPT/ENDORSED: Hahnemann, Ford, Gonzales, Alonso, Evans, Neagle
NO CHANGE: Yedlin, Scott, Traore, Remick, Rose, Caskey, Estrada, Dempsey, Martins
OTHER: Ockford (Loaned out), Lowe, Periera

Got it? Make sense? Good.

We’re Going To Be Insufferable and We’re Not Going to Apologize For It

January 30, 2014 /

There’s a football game this Sunday that is kind of a big deal. A team from Seattle and a team from Denver are going to fly to New York to play it. Our fans – well the ones who have gajillions of dollars to spend on such things – are all flying out there. The two best teams, in the biggest sport in America, will play on the grandest stage in the world, in the middle of one of the most important cities on the planet.

If we win this game, Seahawks fans are going to be insufferable. And we won’t care.

We’re the city that had the best team in baseball history, yet lost to the hated Yankees in the playoffs. We had our beloved basketball team stolen from us by a spoiled rich guy who married into money. We had possibly the 2nd best team in the history of the NBA, only to have the bad fortune of facing – and losing to – the BEST team in the history of the NBA in the Finals.  We lost in our only other Super Bowl appearance because of some dubious officiating that we still complain about.

We need this.  We deserve this. We’re going to win and we’re going to gloat about it. We have been the whipping boy of professional sports leagues. When we win, we’re not going to do it classy.  We’re not going to be gracious. We’re going to shove it in everyone’s face. We’re going to use the comeback, “Beast Mode”  the same way a 6 year old says, “I know you are but what am I.” We’re going to make Richard Sherman the most Googled athlete in America. We may even petition to have the proper spelling of the word changed to “DangerRuss.”

If we lose this game, Seahawks fans are going to be insufferable. And we won’t care.

We’re somehow facing the greatest quarterback in the history if the NFL, in his greatest season, on his brother’s home turf. How messed up is that? The world is rooting for Peyton. If we lose, it will be due to some horrendous call. We already know that. Some pass interference call that only Peyton gets.

We’re going to complain, we’re going to scream. We’re going to have polls about who we hate more, the Broncos, Steelers, Thunder or Yankees. We’re going to overload every comment thread and forum with how much we got screwed. How Eli walked yard by yard with Peyton to explain how the crazy winds work in the Meadowlands. How the NFL needed a feel good story in their worst PR year ever. How the real gods and football gods conspired to get back at Pete Carroll for his USC misconduct.  We already know why we’re going to lose, and we won’t be shy about sharing it.

 

God I hope we get to be insufferable winners…

 

 

 

Biggio vs Jeter

January 8, 2014 /
Imagine if Craig Biggio played for the Yankees his whole career:
  • Craig Biggio: 2850 G, 3060 H, 1844 R, 668 2B, 291 HR, 414 SB, .281 BA, .791 OPS, Played C, 2B and OF
  • Derek Jeter: 2602 G, 3316 H, 1876 R, 525 2B, 256 HR, 348 SB, .312 BA, .828 OPS, Played SS
Biggio always had to be one of the best hitters on his team. Jeter always had $150-200MM of payroll surrounding him.
Jeter will be 1st ballot Hall of Famer.  Biggio will have to wait again for next year.
Poor guy.
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