You don’t know Bo Topic

Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 5/07/2010
Not if he couldn't read pitchers or slide.

i'll assume he can slide as well as you.
5/7/2010 6:13 PM
I'm a sliding fool. STFU, non-believer.
5/7/2010 6:20 PM
What the hell happened to this thread? Started out as a pretty interesting thread about a league experiment and ended up with fat guys in the OF.
5/7/2010 8:05 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By torrone on 5/07/2010
What the hell happened to this thread? Started out as a pretty interesting thread about a league experiment and ended up with fat guys in the OF.
Not entirely off topic, my team is full of guys that are slow and fat....

edit: They just all happen to play 2B
5/7/2010 8:57 PM
The league experiment, although I'd call it a world reclamation, will continue. Soon enough, people will forget about my fatass playing spectacular OF for 30 years.
5/7/2010 9:09 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By drwtsn on 5/07/2010
Quote: Originally Posted By torrone on 5/07/2010
What the hell happened to this thread? Started out as a pretty interesting thread about a league experiment and ended up with fat guys in the OF.
Not entirely off topic, my team is full of guys that are slow and fat....

edit: They just all happen to play 2B

apparently crappy 2B is a leaguewide epidemic
5/8/2010 3:06 PM
It really is.
5/8/2010 3:54 PM
Quote: Originally Posted By MikeT23 on 5/06/2010
Leppytime!!

MikeT vs. bad outfield instincts Usain Bolt

This analysis is not perfect, since all of the splits required are not contained. I erred on Bolt's side in every bit I could where a discrepancy arose.

Usain Bolt - 6'5" elite sprinter, but poor outfielder instincts, takes a wrong step.
MikeT - 270 lb Defensive lineman prospect, who assumedly has good outfielder instincts.

Who gets to the ball first?

Considering you have 6'5" Bolt assumedly taking an entire wrong step before changing direction, we can compare the reaction time/change of direction speed between a 20 yard split (on a 40 yard dash) and a 20 yard shuttle, which features 2 changes of direction.

For the sake of easy conversion, I've decided they will be running 55 feet instead of 50 (as the original problem suggests).

Assumed,
MikeT - 55 foot sprint.
Bolt - 2.5 feet wrong direction, 180 degree turn, 57.5 feet sprint.


The best (20 yd or 5/10/5) shuttle took 4.00 at this season's combine (http://www.nfl.com/combine/top-performers#tp-tab-set-1:tp-grid-container-twenty-yard-shuttle). If you aren't familiar with the 20 yard shuffle, it takes place on grass. The player must sprint 5 yards, touch a line, turn 180 degrees, sprint 10 more yards, touch the other line, change direction again, and go back to their original position (5 more yards). It's called the 5/10/5 shuttle, and it's used to measure agility and change of direction/acceleration for NFL prospects.

Chris Johnson has the fastest 10 yard split in combine history at 1.4 (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_fastest_10_yard_split_in_the_40_yard_dash).

Assuming the best 10 yard split 4.0 total time - (1.4 (CJ 10 yd Dash) x 2 (20 yards not 10)) = 1.2. 1.2 / 2 change of directions = 0.6 to change direction comparing top athletes at the NFL combine with the best speed.

Bolt's 20 meter (21.87 yd) splits - 2.89. (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ua8ycqfc4ok/Sok0X9U62uI/AAAAAAAABq8/HJwymrWaDn4/s1600-h/Table.gif) Assuming he is not still accelerating, and taking his 20 meter time, adjusting it to 50 feet, is (which is in Bolt's favor), that he takes 2.64 seconds to run 60 feet. Add in an elite change of direction, estimated at (0.6), and neglecting both the acceleration for those 5 feet twice, and basing his total time on a higher average speed than attainable (at 55 ft), we've got a 3.24 second extremely optimistic estimate to complete the above for Bolt.

The combine is hand-timed, while Olympic sprints are timed from the gun electronically. Since the athlete determines when to start (the 40) in the combine, an average error of a human is 0.25 seconds, so I'll be adding that into MikeT's combine times.

MikeT will be 274 lb unsigned DT prospect (MIKE bennetT) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bennett_(defensive_tackle) ) running a 5.00 40 yard sprint, with a 2.84 20 yard sprint. (Adjusting for combine hand timing, average error of 0.25) = 3.09 20 yard sprint. Adjusting this to 55 feet (similar conversion as Bolt's) would be 2.83.

Assuming Bolt is the "best" at these other drills (which is a stretch considering Bolt doesn't even reach his top speed during his first 40 meters, much less his first 20). Also, we are assuming that Bolt is elite in agility, which probably isn't the case, since reaction time/change of direction have nothing to do with sprinting, it's just acceleration/top speed... and taking every liberty in Bolt's favor.

Usain Bolt - 3.24
MikeT - 2.83

MikeT wins by a couple of steps. Even if Usain had "best ever" reaction times to the ball being hit, this doesn't make up for the bad step or the 0.41 second that the huge/slow player takes to get there. (average reaction time somewhere around a quarter of a second).
if this is where we are going in bo...this may become one of the best leagues around...you couldnt plan stuff this good...
5/9/2010 6:20 AM
The Rule 5 completed last night. The n00bs did a good job in protecting their players. Every available player had a flaw or just plain sucked. Judging from the R5, the n00bs know what they're doing.

On a personal note, I protected 29. No one took a single player from me. My minors suck. And I took four SP. All are LRB-types but will get plenty of innings from me as I had no pitching. We're going to try and win the 9-8 games all season.
5/13/2010 10:36 AM
I was also impressed at how few good players were unprotected. Seeing how the rule v goes down is a good indicator of the qulity of owners.

I usually look for niche players - Great defensive ss - normally with a weak bat (which I got) or a catcher with high pc. Also had to get a couple SP. The guys I got arent stars, for sure. None of my guys got claimed either.
5/13/2010 10:53 AM
I also think it's a decent indicator of world balance. If the top teams are stacked, they'll lose some guys in the R5 because they can't protect everyone. All the guys available looked like the niche players you spoke of or the AAAA-types that can play in the bigs as 24th-25th men.
5/13/2010 11:02 AM
Usually when you sort by franchise, you can see the one or two teams that f'd up. I dont think anyone lost more than 2-3 players.
5/13/2010 11:13 AM
I sadly had to fill out my SP with Rule 5 guys. With everyone needing needing SP the free agent market went way over my budget. On the plus side even bad pitching will look a little better in Bricktown...right?
5/13/2010 12:01 PM
Quote: Originally posted by TheJester74 on 5/07/2010The error I find in this is the shuttle is about a full burst one direction and doing a 180. Even a bad outfielder doesn't frequently run full tilt the wrong direction only to run full tilt the opposite direction like the shuttle.

Plus the worst outfielder doesn't get it wrong every time. So how often does he get it correct and is able to run down a ball that completely goes over 275 lbs guys head vs how often breaks the wrong direction.

Think of it this way, even when he breaks the wrong direction you only beat him by a few feet, but when he gets it correct he could run 25 feet further in that 3 seconds. Even Willie Mays got to a point wear athletically his great instincts made patrolling CF sad. So if I had to pick between the you with the best instincts and Bolt with the best speed I'm picking Bolt.

Jester, +1

this is a strange thread and argument...

maybe i'm missing something but i'm not sure why MikeT is represented as a 22 year old unsigned DT prospect, he's about 47 and weighs about 225 pounds? Not many guys that age are running a 5.0 40 yard dash. Tebow ran a 4.72 at the combine, Mike is not running a 5.0.

And why do we have Bolt taking a complete step the wrong way? Mike says that's not the point but it does kind of invalidate there whole "scientific" thought experiment with Bolt versus the DT prospect (why a DT prospect again?) Even the outfielder with the worst instincts is not taking steps in the completely opposite direction of what he should be.

He may break towards 8 o'clock instead of 10 o'clock (with 6 o'clock being straight towards the plate and midnight to the wall) and we could have a much more rational discussion breaking something like that down. A simpler way to approach this would be to look at times from home to first (representing speed as an hbd rating) and then see how those compare to those same players UZR and Dewan +/- ratings (representing range as an HBD rating). Limit it to just centerfielders. I understand the flaws with UZR and Dewan's system (and i do know UZR only accounts for balls you catch, which is more range+glove) but over a bigger sample size you could get a rudimentary grasp on just how much speed and range are tied together...this seems like a task for Fangraphs or one of the advanced sabermetric sites though...

Range is tied to speed, but I think MikeT overstates how much instincts trump speed. It seems to me that some of the HBD range/speed combos are a bit out of whack, especially for outfielders, where speed plays a greater role in range than for infielders. At the very least too many outfielders have speed ratings that don't correlate to strongly with their range ratings.

FYI average MLB times for home to first are about 4.3 for righties and 4.2 for ies. The namesake of this thread Bo Jackson could run a 3.65 from the right side, which is an elite time. Willy Taveras has run a 3.56 from the right side. Deion ran a 3.3 from the side. These guys are all borderline world class sprinters who may have had success in track had they dedicated themselves to it.

5/14/2010 8:34 AM
More to the point of the original argument. The difference between Bolt's speed and any outfielder wouldnt be as great as the difference between Bolt and MikeT. The differerence between the fastest outfielder in the ML and the slowest would even be less. So while you may be able to argue that MikeT wouldnt really beat Bolt, it does go towards the point that great instincts trumps speed.
5/14/2010 8:44 AM
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