CAIRO (I don’t know what that is) has the A’s last.
PECOTA has the A’s….. first.
West W L RS RA AVG OBP SLG
10 Oakland Athletics 87 75 791 737 .263 .342 .418
3 Seattle Mariners 86 76 794 741 .275 .347 .412
2 Texas Rangers 85 77 883 842 .275 .346 .459
4 Los Angeles Angels 76 86 830 882 .272 .342 .441
Wooooo!
I have us third. With the Angels last.
But then I haven’t been scientific about it, and haven’t accounted for the “Angels are always 5 games better than they should be” factor.
I think the Angels are reasonably clear favorites, and the A’s are a reasonably clear bet for last, but none of the teams are all that good.
I guess I don’t see it. The Angels downgraded all over the place and over-performed last year (not only their pythag, but most of their hitters)
I guess this is semantics, but I would say that none of the teams are all that bad.
Unless there are objections, I’m linking this in the FKtionary.
Seems like there’s a lot of good stuff there. It’s too bad none of the introductory parts about true talent and regression use a Bayesian framework. It can be a little confusing at first because it adds a layer of abstraction to things, but the math itself is fairly simple and it’s really the right way of understanding these things.
Totally off topic…
Do any of you have good skillz in Microsoft Word? I’m having a problem with a document, and after hours and hours of struggling with it, I’m throwing up my hands. Read no further if you are not a Word person, this will be quite dull.
Long story short I am helping my 89 year old grandfather format his autobiography. I’m going to have it printed through LULU.com and they provide Word templates for the layout. The template is in the correct 6×9 size with the right margins, gutter, etc. It also helpfully provides the page numbers, which I thought was great…until I finished the document. The problem with the page numbers is that they also appear on all of the front of the book materials such as the title page, dedication, contents, etc. For the life of me, I cannot get them off those pages. I even went so far as to get a Word for Dummies book from the library, but though I think I’m following all the right instructions for making two “sections” in the document so that I can format each section separately, etc. I cannot get it to work. Right now I’ve created two separate documents. One is the 8 page intro with no page numbers, the other is the 440 page book text with the page numbers. Unfortunately they have to be uploaded as one document, so I’ve got to figure out a way to get them together. It is uploaded to LULU as a PDF, and I was able to create one PDF of the two merged documents, but when I uploaded that, LULU said that some of the fonts weren’t embedded in the PDF properly, so that led me down a whole other road of frustration.
In short, I’m wondering if anyone can give me magic information or otherwise help me with this problem. I have been working on this book for 9 months now and though I love my grandpa dearly, I’m sick to death of it and I just want it finished. I suppose either Word or embedding fonts in a PDF assistance would do the trick.
What’s happening with the single word doc with 2 sections? (I have excellent wurd skilz, but I’m pretty bad at diagnosing/explaining without “driving.”)
Awesome! I knew someone here would know what they are doing. I inserted a section at the end of the shorter “intro” document (I put a blank page after the intro pages I needed and put the section break there.) My thought was that if I could then format section #2 with page numbers, I could cut the 440 pages from the other document and paste them into the intro document starting at section two. I can see in the lower left corner that I do indeed have two sections. However, I tried both the “insert page numbers” function and the “header/footer” function, and no matter what I have tried, the page numbers always start with page one of section one and then continue on into section two. I unclicked the “continue from previous section” button which I thought was the trick, but no luck. Bear in mind I have very rudimentary wurd skillz, and so this multiple section thing is brand new for me. I have this feeling that it is really easy to do, I’m just not getting it.
I don’t know if this is as quick and easy as it seems it should be, but I was almost thinking if someone (you?!) knew how to do it easily, I could email you the 8 page document, and if you could possibly get the page numbers going in section two, then I could cut and paste the rest. I hate to ask someone to do this, but I’m really at my wits end. (And I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to spend more than a few minutes on this problem, but if it’s easy, I figure I’ve got nothing to lose by asking.) Or, if whatever my problem is jumps out at you, let me know what I’m doing wrong and I’ll give it another shot.
I think the problem is pretty simple. Depending on which version of Word you’re using, the specific dialogue box/button may show up in different places, but it seems like you just need to turn OFF the “same as previous” function.
I’d go in to the big word doc (w/both sections included), and go to View/Page Layout; then go to View/Header and Footer. It usually defaults to show you the Header; click to get to the Footer. DELETE the Page # from the Footer.
You should see, at the top of the Footer box, a default setting to “same as previous”; there should be a button in your Header/Footer toolbar where you can turn that OFF.
Once “same as previous” is OFF, then go to the Footer in Section 2, and insert the Page # autotext field. That ought to do it.
Cool–I’ll give that a try over my lunch break. I’m sure once the light bulb goes on it will be a simple fix.
I just tested this (Word 2007) and it worked, though there is a #6, which is, go to your page 2, which will say “1” in the footer. Choose “format page number”, then “continue from previous section”. This will make that and subsequent page numbers fall in line (2, 3, 4, and so on).
Thanks to you as well (and thank you to MB–don’t think I said that earlier!) I’ll read this as well when I work on this over lunch.
we all now expect free copies of your grandfather autobiography. even those of us who did nothing but stand here, slack-jawed and drooling.
Hey, if you’re up for 440 pages of farm co-ops from 1920-present, have I got a book for you…I don’t even make an appearance until about page 390.
… and when there was no meat, we ate fowl; and when there was no fowl, we ate crawdad; and when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand.
you ate what?
Pagination of front material…dissertation flashback…must take deep cleansing breath….
I think we need to come up with our own projection algorithm — say, Cumulative Regression Of Stats By Year.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Statistical Calculations of Utility To Adjusted Regression Operation?
Baseball Linear-Adjusted Normalized KENdall-tau Statistics and Heuristics for Improved Projections
Computations Adjusted By Bayesian Axioms Generate Expectation
Computations Underestimated By Bayesian Axioms Generate Ennui
so close…any krauts?
Just a minor leaguer. Which I guess is appropriate. Free Kraut!
Seasonally Adjusted User-Easily-Readable Knotted Reinvestments of Annual Unitary Talent
Kernel Regression of Athletics’ Universal Talents
Prioritized Adjustments of Questionable Use Edited Thoroughly To Emphasize
Value Added Normalized to Provide Optimal Performance Predictions Evaluated Later
Ack!
(wakes up in cold sweat)
I have the same reaction
For nevermoor: Posner on the costs of preventing air terrorism:
So the fact that flying is really really safe is a negative for Posner?
And if we’re going to count those costs, lets not limit ourselves to TSA’s budget and airport waiting lines for the offset. Lets include the fact that it pisses me off whenever I think about it. And I’m not alone.
We can reach for big silly numbers on either side, but I don’t see why we can’t limit ourselves to the $1.4 billion. Even if we do reach, though, we need to balance that against the fact that money spent to prevent that attack does not take the likelihood from 100 to 0.
It *is* a negative if an incident of airplane terrorism causes people to seek out other, less safe, modes of transportation. That’s a cost associated with airplane terrorism.
We are structurally underprepared for a mass shift toward Greyhound.
It also *is* a negative if the certainty of heightened security causes people to seek out other, less safe, modes of transportation. That’s a cost associated with security theater.
“plus the fear”?
I’d like to see a feminist Posnerian accounting for the overall costs of Masculinist Society.
Unfortunately I think the CAIRO evaluation is likely better.
The BP projection does really weird things with playing time like assigning Cust 85% of the LF bats. And since their projection doesn’t really use D that makes it seem like a smart move. It also thinks Cahill will be the best pitcher on the A’s next season, and not the best pitcher on the River Cats which is probably more likely.
The CAIRO projections also take into account strength of schedule since it uses DM sims to generate the results. That’s going to hurt all of the win totals in the AL West and it’s not something that the BP projections take into account.
That said, I like us to beat the CAIRO number. I think the AL West is a 4 horse race with all of the teams likely at around a 82-85 true talent level. The winner will be whomever has things break right for them the most. Unfortunately that always seems to be the Angels. Stupid Angels…
So you’re saying that CAIRO is at the delta of denial?
cute (h/t: Drumbeat)
I liked it. And Gio was a reasonable guess since he strikes out a lot of guys (but has never been ranked that low). Mark Ellis, of course, is unlikely to ever have the second best UZR of any OF.
Oh, Rajai. Rajai, Rajai, Rajai.
(When I saw “middle name Joseph” in the question, my first thought was Cust. Then I got to that UZR thing.)