Friday, January 22, 2010

Coupla Fridays


Hooray! The week is over and here comes the weekend! (And, in my case, a trip to Ottawa for some frozen debauchery.) Want to ruin your weekend before it even begins? Consider this late addition to our Podunk Times series, a quote about ex-Mancrush Brett Cecil.
Growing up, Cecil rooted for the Yankees and watched players like Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriquez.

A few years later, he is pitching against the very same players.
We really could've been something Brett.

Attendance Issues


An anonymous commenter came late to the attendance party I held a few weeks back. This commenter made an interesting suggestion:
What about looking at it in terms of the amount spent by each organization in relation to the number of spectators each team has at home games.
Interesting but I don't think there's a connection to make there. The correlation between winning and spending is weak enough, as is the connection between winning and attendance. Removing the common bond of "winning" should only complicate matters. If anything, fans are less likely to trek to see and expensive underperforming club over a predictably shitty team.

The ever-excellent DRays Bay published a series of three posts on attendance the zillion factors that influence it. They consider regional income among other things. One really interesting point/stat is Att+. Consider their definition:
Much like the statistic OPS+, Att+ (or "Attendance Plus") is a measure of how a team's attendance figure compared to the league average for that season. One-hundred is league average; scores lower than 100 are below league average and scores higher are above average
Cool stuff. For shits and giggles, the Jays average Att+ for the decade
is 83, or 17 percent below league average. Tied with the Twins, just behind the A's and Reds. Two of those teams made the playoffs on a semi-consistent basis. Don't believe them when they say this isn't a baseball town.

Awesome image courtesy of BlogTO contributor Jonathon Castellino

5 comments:

  1. But the people who write for the Leafs say Toronto isn't a baseball town and who better than Toronto hockey writers to make that judgement? Oh, wait...

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  2. my personal ATT+ will be at least 114 in 2010.

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  3. Like Cecil, we all make mistakes.

    Very interesting stuff, as always, about attendance. Can't say I'm surprised with 83. And I guess there really are stats for everything.

    Also, that's a fantastic picture of Toronto.

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  4. Agree with eyeb-that is a great shot of Toronto.

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  5. In Cecil's debut, they went on and on over how much he idolized Pettitte.

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