gehringer_2

Do you think guys like Bernstein and Acker are big time sports fans? I really have no idea. Denise Ilitch maybe is. "According to the Michigan Constitution of 1963, the Regents have “general supervision” of the institution and “the control and direction of all expenditures from the institution’s funds.”" Pretty clear I think. This would also be true at MSU, but we don't seem to be hearing anything from East Lansing one way or the other.

And we live in relatively 'safe' places insurance wise. What is happening to rates in CA and FLA has to be pretty frightening.if you are a homeowner.

you circled back the SS that hits like a 1b, but most SS don't hit like 1Bs. Those guys are the outliers, so sure they are most valuable, but the positional adjustment applies between 1b's and SS that hit like SS's too. So I grant you that, but since shortstops don't hit like a 1st baseman a 950 OPS 1B with an average glove still gets paid as much or more than a league average O/D SS.

Yes - this is reasonable. I think from a presentation POV, all you need to do in the case of what Fangraphs does it is make the positional adjustment after the O and D piece are given instead of before.

OK - I;m going to argue the terminology here just to ornery 😜 I don't think your comparison is fair. A slick fielding big hitting SS is a relative outlier. So I thought we were just talking the defensive side here anyway. Let's talk about an average SS and an average 1B because that where your positional adjustment hits the baseline. By definition, half the shortstops out there field better than your guy, just like half the 1Bs out there field better than your guy, From that view the ease of replacing either isn't that different. I think the basic weakness is the attempt to normalize across positions. I understand the motivation, but it's just another example of why some of this gets mis or over applied. I think in the real world you have to value a 1b by how much he is an outlier among 1Bs. irrespective of the fact that all SSs are better fielders, because that is the actual marginal value he brings to the team wrt to an average 1B (or replace 'average' with 'replacement', it only a matter of where on the same scale). Or another way to put is just that shortstops don't play 1st, and even if they did, you don't get enough chances at 1st to produce the same fielding value even you if are literally a SS playing 1st, So fielding comparisons across the position measures something which is more abstract than real.

LOL - if you are Penn state at this point wouldn't you rather play Pitt than Indiana?

IDK. UM athletic dept was in the hole because of the fines but OSU is generally the conference income leader aren't they? I guess if you blow through it all it doesn't matter what your income is! At UM, with Grasso being an interim, plus a guy with no major college sports experience anyway, I don't see him with a big personal interest in his own sports legacy - IOW, I don't think he's likely to try to push the regents one way or the if they make a decision. But who knows? OTOH, I don't suppose any of the Regents want to go down as the 'guy that blew up the Big Ten" even if that exactly the kind of thing that all this is driving inevitably towards.

Steel lug inserts falling out of Al wheels. Have had a lot of alloy wheels, have never had them with steel lug inserts. - why? Honda claims only 3700 bad wheels out of 1.6M total sold, but they have to find the bad ones. 🙄 Not really a fan of steel and Al together unless you absolutely have to, it's two metals that don't play together particularly well.

IDK - It doesn't look like money is the draw - although, this is one charge. If they rigged 100 pitches in the course of a season, the numbers could add up. Or it's just the thrill of getting away with something where you still rationalize to yourself it's a victimless crime, so you don't need to feel bad about it? I can't deny there is some merit to that view. Our current attitudes toward gambling seem completely schizophrenic to me. "We are going to provide you with every incentive and opportunity to rig things, but don't you dare or we will be on you like a ton of bricks!"

Yeah - I get that, but since everyone *has* to play a 1B it seem to fly in the face of logic to automatically make a negative adjustment for the *average* quality player at that position across the board. OK - so as a formalism I can accept that you construct a model where that is a requirement for the numbers to come out, but to me that kind of oddity smacks of a deficiency of the model construction. An *average* fielding 1b isn't really costing you 12 runs in any real sense. By real world definitions the average 1b isn't adding or subtracting anything on the field. I can see there is sort of a built in paradox here that there is probably no easy way around. Of course a SS is worth more defensively than a 1B, but OTOH, you can't actually play 9 SS. So you have to pick a baseline and either way you pick is going create an anomaly.

In watching hitters over the years who do manage to move their platoon splits, my impression has been that often as not they make an adjustment in the box that has a real cost to their ability to hit the opposite pitching. The split closes with both an increase on the low side but also a decrease on the high side. With such a preponderance of RH pitching in the league, that usually just isn't a good trade-off for a LHB to make even if it means he is going to sit against a lot of LHP. OTOH, for RHH, giving up a little against left handers to stay in the line-up is a much better trade.

also well said. File under the heading of "when people tell you who they are, believe them."

Forgot about Kody. And then there was Ben Verlander - but I think we know what that was about.

something tells me this is going to get ugly. I've watched this dynamic before, where the weaker/poorer members of an organization try to dictate to the stronger/richer because they think they have voting numbers. It almost always turns out poorly. Think UM or USC would be welcome in the ACC or SEC? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thanks - I was thinking this thought but didn't do the work to post it.

well said. There is 180 difference between expunging false history and suppressing real history. Just another symptom of the American right wanting to live in an alternate reality of their own making rather than the real world as it is and has always been.

Sorry for your loss. One of my Grandfathers was a tremendous storm of a man, and sure enough, the day of his funeral was a rip snorting July thunderstorm. At one level you know it was just a random thing, but that didn't lessen the feeling of total appropriateness experienced.

yeah - and It's not that uncommon anymore for people to just keep taking the equity out their houses on refis more or less as a source of disposable income and just hope they have somewhere to land when they have to sell and won't get much back.

That seems disproportionate to me considering the how bad a truly bad (i.e Prince Fielder) can be for your team D..

He did seem to like family legacies but off the top of my head I think children of past players have fared better than siblings (e.g. Fielder/Boone(s)/Ripkens/Guererro) but then again Al still missed with Daz Cameron.

weird, they apparently are assuming a huge defensive regression for Torkelson. He was a measely -1 OAA net at statcast and 0 Rdrs. Not GG but OTOH but they are projecting him -12(!) dWAR. Where does that come from?

and it's gotten a lot more uneven, Everyone seems to want to live in the same places, and they tend to be places where no-one is, or can, build enough new housing. Of course it's not so much people have fixations about living where it's expensive as that you have to go where work is, that's become very uneven.

Have any recent Tiger minor leaguer's career prospects gone 60 to zero as fast as Jace Jung's?

he makes a fair number of those little floaters from around 10ft that also argue he has some touch that could be developed. All a matter of how much he wants it I suppose. I guy can probably get pretty satisfied - and pretty well paid, with a nightly double double of put backs and dunks and may not regret it until much later... (see. Drummond, Andre.....)

actually when Tork came back from Toledo he said trying to hit more pitchers where he saw them was part of what he was trying to get back to, that he had become too focused on the 'perfect swing' on the perfect pitch. The way McGonigle talks about aiming for center- to oppo against the FB and pulling the off-speed when he recognizes it is pretty much the same thing Tork says now. I do think Tork continues have trouble sticking with it though! I'm also think guys need to be careful chasing bat speed. Chasing bat speed is OK, but only up the point that it starts costing accuracy with the swing. There is already plenty of energy in most of these guys' swing, and some of the guys with great bat speed don't hit all that well. I believe at one point it was reported that Trey Sweeney had the best bat speed on the team!