Gary Peterson Doesn't Get It

Here is his article. Here is Fangraphs break down of the game. What do you notice? This is what Gary thinks:

Then Cliff Pennington dropped a sacrifice bunt.
"A sacrifice is nothing new," Geren said.
Now hold on a minute. Since the Church of Billy Beane threw open its doors in 1998, the sacrifice bunt has been one of the seven deadly sins. It represents an out, of which you get just 27 per game. Giving away an out has been analogous to wasting other life-sustaining elements, such as water or Facebook.

Take that, nerds on Facebook, which I suppose is everyone except Peterson. Anyway, I'm reading his whole paragraph there as sarcastic, when it shouldn't be. What he wrote there is a fact. Giving away an out is bad (OZZIE FRICKIN GUILLEN~!~!~!) and you do only get 27 of them.

"We (now) have better personnel that can do that," Geren said. "We actually had bunting practice the other day and there were like nine guys taking turns, fighting to see who was up next. It was a lot of fun."

You know what else is fun? Making balloon animals. But I wouldn't have my offense spending practice time on them.

Did we miss something, or did Geren just prove our point? Bunting practice? Fun? Nine guys? Somewhere Mike Piazza just dislocated a retina while rolling his eyes.

Um. No. He proved nothing. All you wrote there were words followed by question marks. Words? Followed? Question marks? Did I just prove my point? The Piazza line is funny though, he's old and his career is over, what a loser!

Anyway. At this point Geren sent Eric Patterson to run for Rosales. No quibbles with that move. But it seems like it's been a while since pinch runners were part of the A's landscape. We don't have the data in front of us to confirm or disprove this...

And lord knows you're not going to do the research to find the data.

With one out and the tying run on second, Rajai Davis struck out on a wild pitch that bounced over the screen and into the stands. Davis was awarded first, and Patterson advanced to third.

Yes! You see, it was all because of the bunt. Playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Old, dirt-in-your-teeth baseball, the way Ty Cobb intended it (read: no minorities allowed) when he invented this game.

Nothing new-agey about that, but it was kind of weird.

Great analysis Joe Morgan. I can see why The Oakland Tribune signs those paychecks.

At this point, Geren considered sending Davis on a stolen base attempt. Before he could, Baltimore's Jim Johnson threw a wild pitch. Davis advanced to second, with Patterson holding third.

So far you've had a player give up an out, reach base on a dropped third strike, and advance on a wild pitch. Credit the A's for taking advantage, but that's not exactly a baseball strategy, it's dumb luck.

"Sometimes the threat of a stolen base is more valuable than a stolen base," Geren said.

Wrong! So very wrong. He can't possibly believe that. I'm sure he's watched the game of baseball before that inning, Geren has to realize an ACTUAL STOLEN BASE is more valuable than the THREAT of one.

Now, go back to the top and look at the Fan Graphs charts. When Cliff bunted it HURT their win probability. It's just that the Orioles threw the game away, since the only out they got was one that was HANDED TO THEM by the A's.

Case Closed.

Raw Is Boring

I tried to watch last weeks Raw. I really did. Maybe it was the long day at work. Of the suphedrine I downed trying to fight off all this pollen. But I fell asleep within the first hour. I don't know what that says about the product, but it can't be good. Honestly, outside of Dave Vs. Cena, I couldn't tell you one feud going on right now. Punk and Rey. But that's Smackdown.