gehringer_2

ugly AB this time though. 🤮

Yup - Hostage taking seems to be standard playbook. But the commercial interests have to know it's a terribly counter productive economic policy. You can't do much business when no-one will come to see you.

Hmm- That's interesting, opposite of what I might have thought - On the assumption that close games are most often low scoring games, maybe in low scoring games the granularity of one run is what introduces the misfit.

I think the other dynamic at work here is that while everybody knows that everybody else is running intelligence under diplomatic cover, and it's tolerated, the level of tolerance of it has a lot to do with the perception of where the overall relationship is headed. From the time Mao passed, the basic outlook of the West toward China was that there was an evolution underway that was moving China in a good long term direction, and it's that hope that raises the tolerance for other irritations in the relationship that remain. Xi has put an end to all that. We now look out and the perception is of a China moving in the wrong direction. There isn't any light at the end of the tunnel anymore so decreasing reason for a US or Canada to tolerate old status quo petite aggressions.

I don't think SY is either. If pulling the plug last season told us anything, it's that he's willing to play a long game, and it looks like his base strategy preference is to build from the blue line out.

it might be interesting to test if a team's per game run differential variance corellated with the prediction strength of its pythag. It's easy enough to postulate a team where therere is a big drop off between the front and back of the BP, or who are strongly handed enough that they get shut out a lot by LHP for instance, so you end up with a disproportionate number or blow-outs and/or shut-outs, which in theory could make the teams pythagorean signal noisier than aveage.

I figure you more or less have to draft in pretty much the same ratio as the roster and it will probably work out in the end. Ptichers get hurt more, but hitters seem to be less projectable so you are going to lose more of them on their performance ceilings. Maybe the practical question would be just looking at 1st round strategy. Most everyone past the 1st round washes out anyway, but it is a reasonable question to ask if you should skew your highest picks toward or away from pitching - basically the question is whether your internal data tells you that your hitter projection uncertainty is less than your pitcher health projection uncertainty.

If you make them hard for the young to obtain, moderately expensive to maintain -(reg and licensing fees) and then put a buyback bounty on them you will start draining the supply and in a generation there will only be fraction as many out there as there are today. It took us 50 years to get where we are with guns, we cannot reject movement in right direction just because will take us a generation to get out of where we are.

yeah big question marks. Rodriguez is a solid pitcher but I don't think we can bank on him winning the Cy Young in a walk, which is where he is about now - and Manning's inability to stay on the field is looking chronic. OTOH Wentz is threatening to turn into a useful piece of a rotation and 50 IP at Toledo might bring Turnbull's command back to a serviceable level. So many questions. LOL -I know everyone is really down on drafting more pitching, but you don't anywhere without it either! You're never going to fill a 13 man staff purely via acquisition.

Wasn't A-Ray down in a FLA retirement community or something? Maybe father time got him. I do remember he occasionaly let his rightwingedness slip, but not often. Was Mr Krabs his avatar?

Congrats!

curious - use Lange in a non-save sit?

Run on 2nd means nothing now anyway.

Tork just not getting much help from the rest of the D. That's an out if Shreve gets over there.

Javy got the bounce too close to 1st that time. The shorter the hop the more difficult the scoop get's to execute. The one right at your feet is murder.

The scorer bailed Javy out on that last one. It was a good play by Spence just to keep Gimenez to one base.

The SO has been thought the ringer around all this for a long time now - at one point even being pushed/pulled in opposite directions by the nutritionist and the MD. She doesn't fit any of the profiles. The only thing I've been learning from it all is that between the host, the flora, the diet, the environment, not to mention drug interactions, the net system is so complicated that anyone who makes definitive claims about solutions is still gonna be wrong about half the time.

Wentz showing a little gas tonight - touching 96.

Goldschmidt asking a quick trade to Cleveland and seat on the Tiger team plane.

Well, at least it's a team effort between the fielders and the pitching today. A shame to waste the HRs by Jake and Torkelson, but hopefully there will be more.

Yeah - Tork is capable of making that play, but OTOH, I don't think many scorers would charge an error on any catch attempt made with the fielder running with his back to the field. Those are beyond 'ordinary effort' almost by definition.

IDK - would have put him in better position to throw home? It didn't look like Javy was fooled or looked away too soom, the ball just didn't come up to where he thought it would.

This team....

BaBIP gods being a little pissy to the Tigers.

well, I suppose it was a less bad outing that any of Turnbull's. The D give up the one run, so basicall 4 2/3 with two HR to Goldschmidt. Faedo needs to find another MPH or so somewhere. Supposedly by going back to his old lower arm angle it freed up his mechanics and he's picked up a little velo, but not back to where he was college.