gehringer_2

Tigers trying to maker sure they burn up another WS pitcher before tomorrow's game (30 pitches for Brebbia in the 9th)

no life on the fastball today, not getting enough pop-ups.

Tiger replay advisor needs to be go? They seem to be losing a lot.

Matt Vierling: Clutch enough.

Happy Sku-ball-game..... ......not much better.

Torkelson up to clean-up. Hope that isn't too soon to mess up his head again.

I used to watch those Yankee teams a bit and like a lot of RHH, good slider pitchers could get ARod away with some consistency early in his career. But to his credit he was able to reduce that weakness in his game as his career progressed, even if he didn't always put up the gaudy numbers of 2005. In general they talk about some guys being 'mistake hitters'. They don't have a lot of zone coverage but can bang it if you hang it. I think those are the guys that probably get the 'choke' label because in the playoffs you are facing pitchers a lot less likely to hang one to you. If you never go get a pitcher's pitch in the zone, you are going to suffer against better pitchers.

In the playoffs it's always going to come down to who can still hit against the best pitching, because odds are that's what you get to see in the other playoff teams. I can see an argument either way. You can theorize only exceptional hitters have any chance against top pitching, so you basically go stars and scrubs because the scrubs will do no worse against top pitchers than average players anyway - i.e. neither will do anything. The other take would be if I have run creation distributed across a bunch of players, one or two of them slumping won't matter, whereas if I have 3 great hitters and one is off his game, that's 33% of my offense. I sort of doubt there is any rigorous way to evaluate the choice and even if there were, no real team is likely to end up built to a single paradigm because almost all teams have to take players where and as they find them. No team is going to dump its stars for sake of a stronger 7-8-9 in the lineup. All I do know for sure is that if you are going against Tarik Skubal in the playoffs, you want Jose Ramirez.

no, you can't do much about it once you are there. Those are considerations at the front end of your team building. Stars are great when they don't let you down. I remember a lot of gnashing of teeth over ARod in 2005 after he put up a 1000 OPS for an MVP season and then did nothing against the Angels and NY went out in the 1st round. He carried them in 2009 though.

My question would be whether your best statistical performances are always the best measure though. One of the worst things that can happen to a team is a high season performing player is slumping come playoff time. I think if I'm putting together a team something I would look are the monthly performance variances of the players I'm collecting. I suppose probability wise maybe in the end it makes no difference, a guy might be just as likely to get hot, but I think if I'm a manager it's going to be easier to make decisions with guys that are more predictable. That - and as noted previously, I'd give up a little overall performance for a guy with a smaller platoon split. I don't want a guy I have to depend on to be an easy mark because of a pitching change. This become a cost issue also though and guys with low splits are also more expensive.

Not the $/byte, it's the MPG* for the fingers...... (*Miles per Grain of ibuprofen)

Is a more sophisticated way of saying what most of us here have already understood: you aren't changing many conservative minds. For too many conservatives too much of their personal identity is tied up in being anti-dem. They literally do not have the imagination to envision life on the 'other side'. (as an aside, maybe more capability for imagination is why many who did make the jump to anti-Trumper were the more creative types like the guys in the Lincoln project.) So the battle has to be fought for the non-political middle. You do that by being as reasonable/acceptable/mainstream as possible. And you have to drive your base. One thing I haven't seem as much commentary about that I thought was significant is that while there is always some, this convention has to hold some kind of record for numbers and intensity of calls for the volunteer participation.

But the thing with Trump is that it doesn't really matter what he thinks about most things, because he doesn't really have much in the way of personal policy convictions. He doesn't really care about abortion personally either. The problem with Trump is that since all human relation is transactional to him, what you have to pay attention to is whose votes/money/support he will buy by backing their positions. And in Trump's case it's been staunchly anti-abortion evangelicals and RW 2nd amendment fanatics that he has pulled into his coalition in return for legislative and judicial appointments supporting their causes. In his heart (or whatever he has that substitutes for one) I'm sure he thinks the whole culture war is stupidity, but he's willing to be the vessel into which the culture warriors pour their support if it gets him power.

Is there a good way to quantify or discern hitters who are "relatively" better at hitting good pitching? Can we define what that mean evens? As specific examples, say you have a LH hitter with a 750 total OPS and an 800/600 R/L platoon OPS split. When you get to the playoffs and aren't necessarily going to face an average amount of R and L hand pitching in a given match-up, so would you rather have the guy with a 750 OPS or may even a 725 OPS but no platoon split? Likewise in the playoffs where I might see a team more overloaded with L or R hitters than league average, do I prefer to have a pitcher who relies mostly on command and change of speed (Skubal type) than a guy with a similar total ERA but who is primarily a slider pitcher who may to struggle against a heavy LH lineup? (maybe a Scherzer) type)? Or just take a guy like Vierling who doesn't have any all star numbers but *seems* to have excess "clutchness" because he can and is willing to adjust by going the other way or pulling the ball depending on what the pitchers is trying to do. He's not a better hitter overall than another guy but he doesn't have a single point of weakness for a good pitcher to exploit as successfully. I think I'd like him on playoff team.

Looking at BR numbers. The Yankees have the most WAR as a team in the AL with a total 12.6 WAR and they are just about 12 wins over 500. At the other end the WS are more than 30 wins below 500 but 'only' rate -22 WAR. The Yankees could end up near 20 WAR by season's end, maybe more like 16. The fit isn't perfect but not bad for a rough approximation. One thing I don't know is whether the BR numbers count injured/moved players in the current team totals.

so the 'stay' is settled. The question is more about the 'on' part.... 🤔

BR has him at 1.8 WAR at 113 games. If you could get nine 2 WAR guys on a team you'd have a pretty good team!

W hite S ox !

smoking is probably a big piece as it contributes more than just the lung cancer deaths to the gender disparity - it also drives COPD/emphasyma and cardio vascular disease. Men who won't go to the doctor until it's too late - esp older men, would be an interesting one to have data on. We all know cases of that anecdotally.

Accidental death and death by infections from wounds probably kept male life expectancy down before workplace safety progress began in the 20th Cent and antibiotics arrived. Smoking was also a factor in the difference for my parents generation. Prior to WWII, smoking was more common in men than women and by the 80's lung cancer prevalence in men peaked at more than twice the rate for women. Since then smoking has dropped for men so to gap in lung cancer deaths between men and women has closed a lot. https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/lung-cancer-trends-brief/data-tables/lung-cancer-deaths-and-rates-by-race-sex-and-year

Jason "I've used all my good karma for the week" Foley with the save.

Jung Ks on a what would have have an RBI BB. They did burn up another WS pitcher for the weekend.

Tork had a nice AB going until the last pitch. Can't freeze on a FB.

I also sort of doubt Sherrone Moore is going to be a source for the occasional conservative culture warrior statements Harbaugh was good for that must have endeared him to some donors. but who knows?

IIRC we had a short lived law to that effect in MI that had been pushed through by the tourism lobby. I don't even remember if it ever took effect or was repealed before the 1st time it would have been applied.