Podcast Ombudsman Report for Blueshirt Bandwidth Ep. 95
Ohio slander, a Jeff Samardzija tangent, and some very concerning lasagna—this week's Ombudsman Report has a lot to sort through.
Welcome back to the Blueshirt Bandwidth Podcast Ombudsman Report. Each week, Charlie Vidal will listen to the latest episode of the podcast and correct the record on anything Joe and Eric get wrong. If you aren't already, you can listen and subscribe to the podcast here.
Ohio
During the introduction, Joe said that Eric is in "the beautiful state of Ohio." Ohio is not beautiful.
Joe’s Henchmen
While reading last week's Ombudsman Report, both Joe and Eric were confused by my joke that Joe’s henchmen will be taken out by heart disease. To clarify, I was calling Eric (and myself, to a lesser extent) fat.
Podcast Length
While getting to the Q&A segment, Joe said that, “we’re 34 minutes in and we’re already on to questions; we might be out of here in under an hour.” The podcast was 1 hour and 34 minutes.
Multi-Sport Athletes
Eric talked about Jeff Samardzija as one of his favorite college football players of all time who went on to have a successful career as a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, Oakland Athletics, Chicago White Sox, and San Francisco Giants. Eric said that Samardzija would have been a third round pick, but at the time Mel Mel Kiper Jr. suggested that Samardzija would have been a mid-to-late first round pick.
The other football-player-turned-baseball-player that Eric talked about was Drew Henson. Henson was drafted by the Yankees with the 97th pick in the 1998 draft, but decided to play football for the University of Michigan. After finally winning the starting job as a junior in 2000 and leading to Wolverines to a Citrus Bowl victory over Auburn, Henson accepted $17 million from the Yankees. Henson never proved himself to be a major leaguer, going one for nine in eight MLB games before pivoting back to football, where he would spend a few years as a backup QB for the Dallas Cowboys.
My favorite sports conspiracy theory is that noted Ohio State football booster George Steinbrenner essentially paid Michigan’s QB $17 million to quit playing football before the 2001 season. This investment paid off when the 6-4 Buckeyes upset the Wolverines in the final game of the regular season to cost Michigan a share of the Big Ten title and a trip to the Rose Bowl.
Volume vs. Quality of Shots
In response to a question, Eric and Joe discussed the Rangers shot quality and quantities. Last season, the Rangers did not take a lot of shots and when they did shoot they weren’t especially good at it.
The Rangers ranked 31st in shots taken but only 14th in shooting percentage. This combined for the Rangers to finish 27th in 5v5 xGoals per MoneyPuck. This was fewer shots than the Rangers had in either of the Peter Laviolette seasons, albeit with a slightly higher shooting percentage. As you can see from the chart below, the Rangers have not been a team that shoots a high volume of shots, but it has also not translated to high levels of 5v5 xGoals.
Of course, both could be downstream from the fact that the Rangers aren’t a good puck possession team:
Lasagna with Cream Cheese
This is a war crime or a cry for help from Eric.
