The Bench Jockeys » plus-minus http://thebenchjockeys.com Inspired Content, Buzzworthy Discussion and Critical Analysis at the Intersection of Sports & Politics Wed, 05 Dec 2018 21:19:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.29 GOP Stop 1: South Carolina … http://thebenchjockeys.com/2011/05/06/gop-stop-1-south-carolina/ http://thebenchjockeys.com/2011/05/06/gop-stop-1-south-carolina/#comments Fri, 06 May 2011 22:10:26 +0000 http://thebenchjockeys.com/?p=625  May 6, 2011 –   So it wasn’t the Legion of Doom line from the 1996 Philadelphia Flyers (Lindros, LeClair and Renberg) but five of the GOP hopefuls did appear in Greenville, South Carolina to offer their respective campaigns’ spin to the foreign and domestic issues of the day.  I sat through this sound bite event – which was inexplicably termed a “debate” – for its entirety and I felt like I learned a bit more about Gary Johnson who looked uncomfortable in his own skin (and The Bench Jockeys have downgraded him accordingly) and underestimated the “everyman” appeal of a very well-spoken Herman Cain (who earned a boost in his odds).  Tim Pawlenty looked very presidential and at ease.  Although T-Paw was a bit scripted, he offered tight answers and knew when to admit he had made an error rather than executing the standard politician rope-a-dope.  Ron Paul, who was well-supported by the South Carolina audience, looked frail; I think that his window may have closed.  (The Bench Jockeys will be tweaking him downward as well.)   Fellow DSL alum Rick Santorum stood out in the quintet as overly moralistic, and even in this 86 octane mid-grade candidate field, the Rooster did not finish in the Top 3.

Pluses go to Pawlenty and Cain/ A Minus goes to Johnson/ No goals against & no goals scored for Paul and Santorum.

The next Republican gabfest will be Iowa on August 11th.

]]> http://thebenchjockeys.com/2011/05/06/gop-stop-1-south-carolina/feed/ 0 The Plus-Minus http://thebenchjockeys.com/2011/03/27/the-plus-minus/ http://thebenchjockeys.com/2011/03/27/the-plus-minus/#comments Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:00:35 +0000 http://thebenchjockeys.com/?p=85 For all you non-Puck Heads, the Plus-Minus is a Hockey statistic which measures a player’s team goal differential for the time he is on the ice during even-strength and shorthanded play.  The Plus-Minus statistic is increased by one (a “plus”) for each player on the ice for the team scoring a non-powerplay goal and it is decreased by one (a “minus”) for each player on the ice when a non-powerplay goal is scored against the team.   More recently, this old school hockey statistic has found its way into other statistical analyses.  The Houston Rockets implemented a modified version of the Plus-Minus stat which helped expose ineffective and light-scoring Shane Battier (Kudos to Michael Lewis’s article “The No-Stats All-Star” in The New York Times, Feb. 13, 2009.)  The Plus-Minus is now in regular use throughout the NBA,… and that’s probably the only good thing we can say about the NBA. 

We think The Plus-Minus has applicability to an array of scenarios.  At its core, it is essentially a measure of how a team performs when certain participants are involved in the effort.  In this Blog, entries categorized under our section appropriately named, The Plus-Minus, concern matters where we are either: a) looking for your participation, input and opinion; b) offer a comparative analysis of a sport, team, or player; c) consider the merits of a particular gameplan [whether that strategy relates to sports (e.g. the intentional walk to create a doubleplay opportunity), politics (e.g. the selection of Sarah Palin as the White Tornado’s running mate in 2008) , or controversial decision-making (e.g. Barack Obama’s decision to join the UN Coalition action in Libya, thereby initiating an act of war without seeking Congressional consent)]; or d) all of the above.

We fully expect that The Plus-Minus will be heralded as the newest evaluation tool in a wide range of team sports and political discourse.   See our Sidebar for any of a number of our hotly debated sporting or political matters.

Fast fact:  20 year defensive stalwart, Larry “Big Bird” Robinson of Les Habs holds the all-time career highest Plus-Minus of +730.  The “Great One” finished his career in 3rd place –  212 behind Robinson – but he is the highest non-defenseman.

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