Iowa Electronic Markets

I'm not big on politics, but the Iowa Electronic Markets are pretty interesting.

These markets are small-scale, real-money futures markets where contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections.

The 2004 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION MARKET in particular has been interesting to follow over the last couple of weeks.

This is a Winner-Takes-All market. The contract that denotes the actual outcome of the 2004 Democratic Convention will have a liquidation value of $1.00, all others will have values of $0.00..

With that in mind, take a look at the Daily Prices Graph. You can see Dean as the clear favorite until the Iowa Caucus. Since then, he's been in a free fall, while Kerry's becoming a runaway favorite. There's a slight hesitation in the market right before the NH primary, and then Kerry's upward surge continues. That probably isn't anything you didn't already know, but it's fascinating to watch the chart change each day.

You might also want to check out the 2004 US PRESIDENTIAL VOTE SHARE MARKET.

Bizarro A's

This past Sunday, Athletics Nation brought up the idea of the Twilight Zone A's, with all the position players the A's lost over the last two-plus years.

"Here, things have changed and the Athletics are suddenly a team that has retained past players and discarded the known current quantities." (Salaries ignored)

He goes on to compare the "Bizarro" A's lineup to the current A's lineup. His argument is that there isn't that big of a difference. In terms of career OBP (.343/.344) and OPS (.787/.730), the two lineups look remarkably similar.

I took a look at these same lineups from a (quick and dirty) Established Win Shares Level perspective. My method only looks at the last two years instead of the last three, simply because that's the only data I had readily at hand.

Bizarro A's:
Johnny Damon - 19.5 Win Shares
Ray Durham - 18
Jason Giambi - 31
Miguel Tejada - 28.5
Eric Hinske - 17
Jose Guillen - 11
Terrence Long - 11.5
Ramon Hernandez - 15.5
Angel Berroa - 16
Total - 292.5 (Translates to 56 Wins)

Actual A's:
Mark Kotsay - 18 Win Shares
Mark Ellis - 16
Eric Chavez - 25
Jermaine Dye - 7.5
Erubiel Durazo - 13.5
Bobby Kielty - 13.5
Scott Hatteberg - 15
Damian Miller - 10
Bobby Crosby - 8 (This one's a rough guess)
Total - 253 (Translates to 43 Wins)

That's a difference of 13 wins, which could potentially be the difference between 97 wins and 84 (assuming the pitching staffs are equal). Thirteen wins could be the difference between being in the hunt for the best record in baseball and missing the wildcard by 7 games. All other things being equal, I'd take the Bizarro A's.

Now that I feel bad about bashing AthleticsNation, let me point you towards his latest, Foulke You, You Foulking Foulke. I totally agree with him here that signing Zito, Mulder, Hudson and Chavez is infinitely more important than getting stuck with a reliever on the decline.

Hand-Eye Coordination

Think you've got some? Test yourself...

UPDATE: My best is 21.5 seconds

What I'm Working On

I'm currently working on two things:

(1) 2003 Minor League Runs Created for the A's
See similar analysis on No Pepper, the raindrops, and RedsFaithful's Baseball Blog.

(2) 2004 MLB Predictions based on 2003 Win Shares and player movement.
Check out the beginning of a similar analysis on BaseballCrank.

Now, I just need to get it done. If only this whole "job" thing didn't require so much time....

Senator Tom Brady

Smoking Gun has a great piece about Tom Brady's political history. Despite being invited to the State of the Union, he's never voted.

And I'm sure he's not alone in that regard among NFL players.

Tremendous Problems

I've been having massive problems with this website. I'm only able to access the site about 5% of the time. If you have any suggestions on what might be causing this, email me at andrew_koch@hotmail.com

Many thanks.

Very Cool

Check out this post from Will Carroll about the Met's new "Stathead," Ben Baumer. Be sure to scroll down through the comments and notice that Ben himself actually got involved.

I think it's great that this type of exchange is happening at all. I certainly can't imagine Dan Marino reading and responding to a post about his hiring in Miami.

And good luck to Ben! Check out the message from him on his site. I can't say I'm with him on the whole "put the Mets back on top" sentiment, but you've gotta love another team seeing the light. Let's see if they listen to him...