Monthly Archives: August 2008

Alex Rodriguez vs. Alfonso Soriano

Written on August 30, 2008 by Adam in Sports
3 Comments - Leave a comment!

Quick disclaimer: I think Alex Rodriguez is overrated, over paid, doesn’t show up in the clutch, and is a whiner.  Ok with that out of the way, many people consider A-Rod (silly nickname) the best baseball player in the league, a sure-fire hall-of-famer, and destined to rewrite the record books.  Back in 2003, the New York Yankees traded Alfonso Soriano for Alex Rodriguez.  I thought the move was silly and didn’t make sense.  Soriano made less and offered similar production.  Not to mention, the Yankees already had Derek Jeter at shortstop.  Well the Yankees didn’t call me up for my opinion and as such they’ve been “stuck” with A-Rod for the last 5 seasons.  During those 5 seasons the Yankees haven’t won a World Series, but the Boston Red Sox have won 2.  Just saying.

Ok, well I’m a data driven guy.  I love data.  With Soriano and the Chicago Cubs seemingly headed to the World Series (wouldn’t it be great if they won) it got me thinking about Soriano and Rodriguez.  I pulled the stats and I was flabbergasted. For the purposes of streamlining this comparison, we’re going to look at the following statistical categories: Salary, Games, Hits, Runs, Stolen Bases, RBI, Home Runs, Batting Average, OPS, and World Series titles.  Check this out:

  • Salary: A-Rod $120,389,252 (AVG of $24,077,850) vs. Soriano $46,900,000 (AVG of $9,380,000)
  • Games: A-Rod 743 vs. Soriano 681
  • Hits: A-Rod 845 vs. Soriano 799
  • Runs: A-Rod 578 vs. Soriano 461
  • Stolen Bases: A-Rod 104 vs. Soriano 125
  • RBI: A-Rod 592 vs. Soriano 423
  • Home Runs: A-Rod 201 vs. Soriano 166
  • Batting AVG: A-Rod .304 vs. Soriano .284
  • OPS: A-Rod .975 vs. Sorano .867
  • World Series Titles: A-Rod 0 vs. Soriano 0
A few things stand out to me:
  1. A-Rod made nearly 3X as much as Soriano did from 2004 – 2008
  2. A-Rod has played in 62 more games
  3. On the whole A-Rod’s raw stats are better than Soriano’s with the exception of stolen bases
  4. Neither player has produced a title

So on the surface, A-Rod seems like the better performer.  If your course correct for the games played differential, the numbers get within +/- 10% of each other.  For example Soriano averages 1 home run every 4.10 games.  If you scale out the home runs for Soriano to the same 743 games A-Rod has played you’d end up with 181 home runs.  Fascinating.

The real question though should be, “Is Alex Rodriguez worth 156.69% more (that’s the salary differential) then Soriano?”  If we assume the goal for the Yankees, as it is every year, is a World Series, then no.  But, let’s be serious, no one wins the World Series every year.  So let’s find a way to normalize the player’s value.  Thank god for win shares.  During the time period we are evaluating, Soriano had 98 win shares, while A-Rod had 151 win shares.

According to the win shares formula, A-Rod produced 53 more win shares. Based on the formula, 53 win shares, means A-Rod generated 17.67 more wins over those 5 seasons.  As a percentage he was 153% better than Soriano.  This is where the surprise came in.  Even though the raw numbers don’t seem to indicate A-Rod was worth 156.69% more money, his win shares seem to indicate he is.

For what it’s worth, I’d argue the Yankees would have been better off keeping Soriano and filling the third base hole with someone else.  But, that’s just me :)

Tags: , , , , ,

Twitter Grader and Making Twitter Better

Written on August 30, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising
3 Comments - Leave a comment!

Hubspot, the maker of Web Site Grader, has introduced a new product caller Twitter Grader.  Twitter Grader seeks to quantify a person’s Twitter profile.  Specifically, Twitter Grader, indicates they use the following information to arrive at a score:

  • The number of followers you have
  • The power of this network of followers
  • The pace of your updates
  • The completeness of your profile
  • …a few others 

I think this is a GREAT first step in figuring out how to indicate a person’s value to the Twitter community.  Admittedly, Twitter Grader is limited by the information that is readily available.  Essentially, that can’t leverage an input for their algorithm that does NOT exist.

The one thing missing from Twitter Grader’s methodology is content quality.  Unfortunately, there really isn’t a simple metric they can pull from because Twitter doesn’t offer one.  I’ve asked Twitter to add in functionality that allows people to “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” a Tweet based on the value the reader believes they are/are not getting.  I think this feature is a critical add on for a variety of reasons.

  1. It’ll keep people honest.  Tweeters will actually have to consider what type of content they publish.
  2. It takes volume of Tweets out of the equation or at a minimum reduces its value.  The current Twitter Grader model looks at frequency of posts.  Well hell, that’s not a real determining factor of value.  If I had no life I could just tweet non stop for 24 hours and overtake the current Tweet leader.
  3. You’ll generate more Twitter members.  The singe biggest gripe I hear about regarding Twitter is the signal to noise ratio.  Many people complain to me that Twitter is filled with a lot of garbage and it’s too challenging to find the diamonds in the rough.  I couldn’t agree more.  Even if you follow, so-called industry leaders, you end up with a lot of shameless self-promotion.
The need for a quality scoring system in Twitter is no different than when we needed a better way to calculate search engine result relevancy.  For those of you who can remember the web circa-1996, people could defeat the search engines by using a keyword terms over and over in the meta tag data or by repeating the word over and over on a page.  The search engines looked at that page and said, “wow, these guys must know a lot about keyword term X since that keyword term comes up a lot.”  Of course, we needed to evolve.  We needed better quality and better relevancy for end users.  The search engines got smarter and fixed the equation.
We need Twitter to fix the equation.  If they don’t, they won’t attract new users, and the Twitter Sphere will simply be riddled with lots of Tweets by people about what they just ate.
Tags: , , , ,

2008 Minnesota State Fair

Written on August 29, 2008 by Adam in Cora, Events, Family
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Wow, what a difference a year makes.  Last year we took Cora to the Minnesota State Fair.  She was only 4 months at the time, but we strapped her into a BabyBjorn and pounded away at the pavement.  We event made time to give Cora a little taste of a corn-dog.

Cora Eats a Corn Dog

Cora Eats a Corn Dog

We’ll this year, Cora was really able to enjoy the fair.  She really ran us ragged.  Clearly, I need to be upping my daily mileage so I can keep up.  She was hesitant at first, to touch the animals.  But, once she realized they wouldn’t bite back, Cora had no problem petting them.

Cora Pets The Animals

Cora Pets The Animals

Her first real taste of fair food came in the form of a fried cheese curd.

Cora Eats a Cheese Curd

Cora Eats a Cheese Curd

From there it was a corn-dog, then some mini-donuts, cookies from Sweet Martha’s, and lastly a blueberry snow-cone.

Cora Eats a Mini Donut

Cora Eats a Mini Donut

 

 

Cora Eats a Snow Cone

Cora Eats a Snow Cone

It wasn’t all junk food though.  Cheryl made sure to give her a nice glass a milk.

Cora Drinks Some Milk

Cora Drinks Some Milk

What a great time!

Tags: , , , , ,

3 Types of Bosses

Written on August 28, 2008 by Adam in Misc.
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

I’ve had every type of boss and/or manager out there.  In 12 years I’ve had over 15 managers.  They range from great to absolutely awful.  Some of my managers really stand out as fantastic mentors.  Others, were as useless as a bicycle to a person in a wheelchair.  Having talked with many colleagues about their experiences with managers, I think every boss/manager can be put into 1 of 3 buckets.

  1. Discipline Expert: This person knows everything about everything when it comes to the area they are managing.  If they are managing a group of developers, he/she knows all the code languages in and out, there isn’t a question they can’t answer, and they are generally viewed as the guru.  Bill Parcels and Colin Powell are great examples of this type of boss.  These guys know everything there is to know about their respective sports.  There’s a reason they’ve been around as long as they have been and continually in leadership roles.
  2. People Person: This type of manager excels at managing people in general.  They may not know everything there is to know about accounting, but dammit if they aren’t able to effectively manage a department well.  Work gets done on time, on budget, and the team is generally content.  Keep in mind content doesn’t mean happy or ecstatic.  It just means content.  The People Person does a great job of managing egos and personalities very well.  They have calming influence.  When I think of this type of manager I think of Phil Jackson or Joe Torre.
  3. The Fossil: I’ve always been split on the fossil.  The fossil is the person who has been around long enough to warrant the role.  They aren’t a discipline expert and they man not even be good with people.  However, they’ve “paid their dues” and as such are deserving of the role.  Often times, the fossil knows how to work the system.  After all they’ve been around long enough to have probably helped invent the system :)  I generally believe that fossils are the worst type of boss.  They rarely inspire their teams and aren’t considered deserving of their role/title.
I’m sure there are other types of bosses out there.  One that comes to mind is “The Buddy.”  You know who the buddy is.  They are the person who was hired and/or placed into a role because they are buddies with someone.  These people generally are the worst of the worst and can really screw up an organization because everyone knows they weren’t hired for their skill, management savvy, or their history.  These folks also cast a negative shadow on the bosses/people who hired them.  It shows that they care more about their friends than they do the company.
If you’ve got thoughts, feel free to share them.
Tags: , , ,

Audi Goes iPhone Compatible

Written on August 27, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

I’ve worked on car brands in the past. The build your own tool/section was always a heavily debated area of the site. Sure it needs to be functional, but it also needs to be sexy and sell you on the car. With the number of people using iPhones and other mobile devices you’d think car companies would start investing in their mobile presence. Audi has done a great job of reaching out to mobile users. Recently they launched two very cool, smart, and progressive features:

  1. An iPhone formatted site.  The site even lets you build your own car on the iPhone and locate a dealer
  2. An iPhone game that’s 100% free from the APP Store.  The game relies on the physics of the iPhone rather than the touch screen.
If Audi, who isn’t a market leader, can do this quickly, efficiently, and really well; then why can’t market leaders like BMW, Lexus, and Mercedes?
Tags: ,

Running – Day 1

Written on August 25, 2008 by Adam in Running
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

So I finally made it out for my first run. I had planned to start running on August 4th, my birthday.  However due to some gear arriving late, getting sick, and work travel I wasn’t able to find the time.  This was my first run using Nike+.  I have to say, it worked really well.  The Nike Lunar Trainer shoes were outstanding and the Sennheiser PMX70 headphones were better than advertised.  So the gear was great, but I wasn’t.  The last time I actually ran a real 5K race was in 1996.  I ran a 19:27, which is a 6:15 per mile pace.  My personal best is somewhere in the neighborhood of 16:12.  Tonight was not quite that.  You can see the results here.

So I’m basically 25% worse than I wa 11 years ago. Actually, that’s not too bad. My goal is to get up to about a 25 mile a week base and get back to the 6:15 per mile average for a 5K. We’ll see.

Tags: ,

World Air Guitar Championship

Written on August 25, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Yes, you read that correctly. Seriously, knowing that a championship exists for air guitar makes me feel so much better about my 4th grade field day participation ribbon. It also makes rhythmic gymnastics look like a legit olympic sport.

Tags: , ,

What Does Biden Think About Obama?

Written on August 23, 2008 by Adam in Funny, Marketing & Advertising
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

I love digital age. I love that the web makes it easy to find things like this.

Too damn funny.

Tags: , , ,

Budweiser – The Great American Lager?

Written on August 21, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

Came across this ad today on SI.com.  Is this a preemptive strike to try and convince people Budweiser is an American beer, even though the brand will be owned by InBev?  If it is, I have to say, banner ads aren’t going to cut it.

 

American Lager

American Lager

Tags: , , , ,

Microsoft Surface

Written on August 21, 2008 by Adam in Marketing & Advertising, News
0 Comments - Leave a comment!

I’ve been a big fan of Microsoft’s Surface technology platform for a while now.  Unfortunately, there have been very few real world examples to point to.  I came across this demonstration earlier today.

BMW will be using it in their dealerships as a way to feature cars for customers. This is a great example of how companies can start thinking about uses for Surface. The iPhone and Apple have done a great job of conditioning consumers to use, understand, and want touch screen driven devices. With so many people using touch-screen driven tools there really isn’t a learning curve anymore, which opens up the possibilities. So, what would you do with Microsoft Surface?

Tags: , , ,
« Older Posts