Friday, August 17, 2012

Investment Advice

I'm a mutual fund kind of guy. That whole Wall Street investing thing is all jibber-jabber to me. People start talking about p/e ratios and candlesticks and I wanna beat the bleeding pee out of 'em with a bloody goddamn candlestick in the bloody fecking conservatory, the gobshites. So I do the mutual fund thing. Dollar cost averaging and all that, very Andrew Tobias, you know? I read this book by Burton G. Malkiel, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, where he picked stocks by tossing darts at a page of NYSE listings and he did as well as most index funds. That shit fucked with my mind and when I meet with my financial/retirement advisor I tell him "just get me in them mutual funds." I mean, I'm an amateur, and there's nothing pros like better than an amateur playing in the markets. Poker players love a fish--they can string him along and only land him when he's all played out. So I like safe. And boring. And consistent. Like mutual funds.

Which brings me to Matt Cain. He has his highs. He has his lows. But overall, he's a steady performer. Good to have in the portfolio. You are going to get your money's worth with MattyC. MaCain. MtCn. MaCa. MTC. How would he be listed if he were a mutual fund? And you know he'd have low annual fees, he's just that kind of guy. Check out his Career Average Game Scores:
                     

Year    Age   GS GmScA
2005     20    7  62.9
2006     21   31  53.3
2007     22   32  54.7
2008     23   34  53.5
2009     24   33  58.3
2010     25   33  58.4
2011     26   33  58.9
2012     27   23  60.3
8 Yrs        226    57


Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 8/17/2012.


If that were a prospectus, I'd be invested already. That's a damn fine track record. Tonight's Game Score was 76, his fourth best of the 2012 season. Matt Cain is a damned fine ball player. He got some mad pitching skillz, bro. The Padres are ripe for the plucking and the Giants need to commence gobbling. You put the hurt on the bad teams and hang in there with the good teams. Thus speaks Saber-thustra. Ten runs, fifteen hits, it makes a man giddy. Eight innings, four hits, one run--what's beyond giddy? Way to go, Matt. Way to make me look good for picking you as my number one guy.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.




p.s. Be on the alert for a special post this weekend.
 

4 comments:

nomisnala said...

Of interest, Matt indeed is steady and reliable, his stats and reliability almost completely mirror Bumgarner's for this year. Of course Matt has a longer track record. But the master of consistency, game by game, has been Ryan Vogelsong. After he hit a bump vs. Washington, with some of the slobbiest fielding of the year behind him, and some very questionable calls which ended-up costing him, he hopefully will get right back on the consistency wagon and bring us a nice return on our investment. Timmy on the other hand is like the Bush crash of 2008. He has plunged downward faster than facebook.

Zo said...

With mutual funds, past performance is no guarantee of future results. I think Matt Cain is better than that.

Yes, Matt was good. But I also liked the hit parade. We scored a whole pile of runs in the third inning because we were able to hit, hit and hit. Everyone contributed on the evening, looked patient at the plate and worked hits. Even Matt hit in the third. Does that affect his game score?

Brother Bob said...

So, we were out of first place for, what, one whole day? This better not happen again! We need to light the after-burners and leave them on for the next week. Continue to embarass the Puds then get back at the Doggers. All our starters need to bring their A Game.
I'm pleased by the performance of the Brandons lately. Both of them seem to have settled into their roles and are hitting like manly men.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Funny, Ross Ohlendorf is a financial engineering major (Princeton). My brother-in-law has a grad degree from Columbia in the same field, he's a hedge fund analyst. I didn't know about Ohlendorf's background when I used this mutual fund theme!! Works perfectly. Maybe I'm just tuned to the zeitgeist, guys. Love the finance-themed replies, too.

Matty was a beast last night in a huge situation (post-melky apocalypse), and the lineup was fantastic. Really happy with the way the Brandons have stepped up, too.

GO GIANTS!!