Opening Day! Sans Yankees

It is opening day, and that is very exciting. I watched the Nationals game on ESPN last night and that new stadium looks beautiful. I really like Manny Acta and they have some good players. They could be exciting, just not quite good enough.

Anyway, I could stay really objective and say that this blog is just about baseball in general, and while that may definitely be true, I would by lying if I said this blog was slanted towards the Yankees and the AL East. So, much to my chagrin, I have to wait one more day to actually watch/listen to/keep track of a Yankees game. That is kind of depressing.

However, I don't have much to say right now, though I am watching Giants-Dodgers, and it's weird seeing Joe Torre in a Dodger uniform, but I'll get over it. I also said a couple of posts ago that I would make some note of the Canseco-A-Rod steroid crap, but I decided against that, because there's nothing really to say. Canseco has NOTHING. He has a tremendous axe to grind so I'm pretty much taking everything that comes out of his mouth with a grain of salt.

I did want to bring one thing up: one of the sites we have linked on the right side of the blog is the Replacement Level Yankees Blog. I know, I know, it is just about the Yankees, but what I am linking here is the RLYB's projection system for the upcoming system. (You should also go there for some very forward-thinking analysis of the Yankees and at many times, baseball in general. They are really sweet over there.) They ran the season a bunch of times through six different systems and it is interesting to see that despite the fact that everyone seems to think the Yankees are the fourth best team in baseball...these projections say the Yankees are the best. I think that is interesting and I think everyone should take note of that. These projections are used still because they are successful. If they weren't right, people wouldn't pay attention to them. Well, people are still paying attention, which would lead me to deduce that they ARE right a fair amount of the time.

http://www.replacementlevel.com/index.php/RLYW/comments/the_2008_diamond_mind_projection_blowout_pt_2

So, you should check that out if you want to see how complex equations and programs predict the baseball season. I'll hopefully be back tomorrow with a rehash of the Yankees first game, which I'm very excited about.

Baseball is back, and it's a good feeling.