Singing The Blues

Singing The Blues

Wildshard looked out on his Garrison and saw that it was good. Life is pretty easy these days for Wild. The stress of raiding is gone - has been gone for, literally, years. The acerbic JB, once a risk taking, axe wielding shaman, has been banished to Orgrimmar, having lost everything of worth to her, including her profession of Alchemy, which once helped sustain Happy’s gold mine. That task has been given to another. Philly is in even lower esteem. No one wants what she has to sell, and the once realm hopping priest no longer has a flock. Both JB and Philly languish at level 85 with no prospect of ever advancing further.

In their place is Jocy, a no nonsense paladin who took a shortcut from level 27 to level 90, and her opposite, Fist, the daughter of still dangerous Tiphaine. Fist worked her way from level 1 to level 90 in one long, grueling climb. Jocy is now at level 94, and Fist at level 93. They both have their own Garrisons and contribute goods that go into Happy’s pocket.

On a typical day, all three - Jocy, Fist, and Wild - follow a nearly identical routine.

1 - Collect Garrison stores
2 - Do daily profession chores
3 - Collect completed work, do more work orders
4 - Collect goods from the mine, to include working the mine
    - this includes work which helps leveling, and is very slightly dangerous
5 - Take a nap, watch a movie, whatever, and do it over again tomorrow

Wild does the above plus the following:
6 - Picks herbs from the Herb Garden
7 - Sometimes goes fishing at the Fishing Shack

Jocy and Fist argue about which one of them should start working on raising their level to the max one hundred, but Wild isn’t sure if the issue is demanding time to level, or demanding that the other do the leveling. Jocy has a very slight head start over Fist, but neither seem eager to jump into action.

Early on in Draenor Wild and family thought that leveling their professions and making amazing things would help keep things interesting. That soured with Fist after she crafted her first 36 slot Draenor leatherworking bag, which cost over 2,000 gold in materials to make. She proudly placed it in the Auction House for sale, only to discover that there was another 36 slot leatherworking bag, one that cost under 500 gold to make, and didn’t require leather working to make. She eventually sold it at a steep loss.

Wild had a similar come down when he actually did some work gathering materials to make a Creeping Carpet, the ground mount that Wild thought would be really cool to have. Wild soon learned, however, that the Creeping Carpet was exactly the same as the other two carpet mounts that Wild already had. The “new” mount was the same in every way but the name.

How about Jocy? An alchemist, she had made a steady income selling healing potions in Pandaria and expected to continue crafting the new healing potions for Draenor. Jocy found out the hard way that making those new potions had nothing to with Alchemy. The potions were lumped in with “bandages” and were crafted - get this - by fishing. Jocy doesn’t fish.

Life is good . . . well, okay . . . sort of . . . slow, boring, static  . . . snoooooze.

Baseball Again?

Baseball Again?

Every now and then my passion for baseball gets in the way of World of Warcraft. You have been warned. The below is the letter I sent to the sports desk of the Union-Tribune newspaper here is San Diego. (Sigh, the results tables didn't turn out very well here, but at least they are still readable)

To: Letters Editor (Sports):
HEADLINE: The San Diego Padres will have a winning season in 2015, but won’t make the post season. That’s my prediction, and I can back it up with the numbers.

The Assumption: The pitching will match their 2014 production in 2015, although a diminished defense will cost the team in unearned runs.

The Question: Given the above assumption, how good does our revamped offense need to be for the Padres to field a winning team?

I know the answer to that question. Getting to that answer required a couple of steps. Step  (1) Using a statistical modeling program, I ran a series of simulations based on the 2014 season statistics and the projected roster for 2015. Step (2) I ran a second series of simulations based on predicting improvements by key players. I call it The “Will” Factor. In a moment it will be obvious why.
Simulation One used only the 2014 statistics. The results show what impact the changes to the roster have on the offense.

Simulation Two goes a step further. The “Will” Factor - Wil Myers (2013), Will Middlebrooks (2012), and Will Venable (2012) - were selected for upgrades, using the statistics from the selected years. A fourth player, Jedd Gyorko (2013), is widely expected to make a comeback, so he also received an upgrade.

Would either simulation be enough to lift the Padres to a winning season? Here are the results.

San Diego Padres RESULTS
Part 1 - Based on 2015 roster and 2014 statistics.
Record    Standings    BA    Runs/HR    SB    ERA    Errors   
70-92    4th        .224    521        54    3.55    x
83-79    2nd-tie/SF*    .239    605/129    48    3.23    x
75-87    4th        .235    595/119    77    3.19    116
81-81    2nd        .245    634/124    63    3.35    116
79-83    3rd        .220    516/117    68    3.15    137
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
78-84            .233    574/122    62    3.30    123 <-- br="" final="">* Possible post season chance
Answer - If the new roster plays at the 2014 level, the Padres will not have a winning season.

Part 2 - Based on improvement by four key players.
Record    Standings    BA    Runs/HR    SB    ERA    Errors   
86-76    2nd*        .249    592/145    67    3.36    131
78-84    3rd        .240    612/155    50    3.59    124
81-81    2nd*        .251    652/149    62    3.40    99
74-88    4th        .257    635/140    64    3.56    124
90-72    2nd*        .243    638/152    65    3.27    123
------------------------------------------------------------------------
82-80            .248    625/148    61    3.44    120 <-- br="" final="">* Possible post season chance

Answer - SUCCESS! It is a marginal victory, but the Padres go over .500 in 2015. For the most optimistic, there is also a 3 in 5 chance that the Padres could win their way into the post season.
Note: The program I use for the simulations is from the Strat-O-Matic game company. I played five seasons for the two simulations and then averaged the results.
A baseball fanatic since 1968, and a Padres season ticket holder since 2013, I hope you found the above interesting.