That was a fun one yesterday. I thought Spurs were going to tie it about a dozen different times, especially after Rodriguez missed that shot from short range. (It wasn't an easy chance, but I think he'd tell you that he should hit the target from there.)
I think Dyche is always entertaining so it was good to see him get the points, hopefully they'll be able to stay up.
Yeah, watching it I thought that Kulusevski could have scored 3 goals if he'd had slightly better luck. Couple of great blocks and a 3rd shot that barely went wide.
But you're right, it definitely wouldn't have been fun for a Burnley or Spurs supporter to watch! (Until the end, I suppose)
My B.S. in Physics has me going "There's no way in hell that person is going to be able to swing that giant weapon, I don't care how strong they are or what it's made of" and "that car is totaled; there's no way in heck you're still going to be able to drive it" quite often.
We metallurgists see a whole bunch of things that either *can't* exist, like Vibranium, or would not function the way they're depicted. Gold-titanium alloys, for example, are strong but necessarily brittle, and therefore not useful for anything like armor, since it would shatter at first impact.
I mean, I get that it's comic book fantasy, so I don't complain about the plotlines involving Norse gods or portals across the multiverse, but I draw the line at some imaginary metal that presumably has like 26.5 Protons.
Since we're griping, there's NO WAY you can fold up that giant robot into that little car - especially when you want it to work BOTH as a car AND a giant robot.....
Seriously! Where do all the hydraulics go??!? What happens to the electronics the first time it gets blasted by something? And how does a girl who spends literally all of her spare time in a mechanic's shop NOT notice that the rusty old Camaro she just bought has no engine under the hood?!?!
Nothing nearly as serious as what has been occurring at Casa Calcaterra, but I spent yesterday in the hospital undergoing a minor out-patient spinal procedure. Because they were running late, they let me hang onto my cell phone while waiting for the OR to open up. So I got to spent much of the time reading and briefly responding to the musings here. Nice way to take my mind off of it.
So after they started the (very light) sedation I was trying to play mind games to keep from thinking about what they were doing. And the game was: what is the all-time Switch Hitting lineup. Here is where I got:
Utl: Rose
C: Simmons
1B: Murray
2B: Alomar
SS: Smith
3B: Jones
LF: Raines
CF: Mantle
Then I got stuck. Do I move Reggie Smith or Carlos Beltran out of position to RF? Both played there some but had their best years in CF. How about DH? Do I use a player who really was a DH, like Chili Davis or Ken Singleton? Or can I take the criminally underrated Lance Berkman, who, like Rose, didn't really have a position?
At which point, they stuck a needle into my spine and I stopped thinking about baseball.
Move Beltran to right. Not that uncommon for a team to have two capable centerfielders with one playing right. And a vote for Berkman at DH. Seems wrong to leave him off for a “true DH.”
Yes, by the gods, put Beltran in any way you can! The Milwaukee Brewers outfield's defensive success these past years shows that so long as you have one great defender in the outfield - not necessarily at CF - the other two outfielders get better as well. As for switch-hitting DH? Right now I can't think of a better answer than Lance Berkman, but honestly Jose Ramirez of Cleveland is nearly as good a hitter right now as Berkman was, just obviously hasn't had as long a stretch of great hitting, and Jose could even get better yet.
So of course, because it's baseball, I went to b ref and looked into both dudes' splits. Thing I learned today: Berkman was great from the right side (995 OPS), but a has a .777 OPS from the left. Jose Ramirez is 858 from the right, 851 from the left. What I take away from this is that Lance still gets the edge, but his splits are very pronounced. Dare I say that Jose Ramirez is almost as good, and perhaps just as *useful* because his splits are more even? Somebody should run the numbers.
"What kind of switch hitter would you rather have - one who is absolutely elite from one side but league average from the other, or one who is very good from both sides but not MVP-caliber from either?"
Chipper Jones is, I believe, the only switch hitter with a meaningful career who batted over .300 from both sides of the plate. He had a little edge in power from the left side but not a huge one.
This makes me wish we could somehow re-run Berkman's career with him batting right-handed only. Would he have been better off not trying to switch hit?
Personally, I'd prefer Jorge Posada at Catcher, who was slightly better than Simmons at their peaks, though Simmons obviously had the longer (and Hall of Fame worthy) career.
Ted Strong was a perennial Negro League All-Star who hit for average, power and speed, winning the Negro AL triple crown in 1942 as a right fielder for the Kansas City Monarchs, with a considerable amount of other "black ink" on his BB-ref page. One of the years he played in Mexico he hit .332 and tied Josh Gibson for the league lead with 11 HR.
Obviously, you can hardly go wrong with Beltran, but as you can see, Ted is a (ahem...) Strong candidate, too. ;-)
*ducks hurled vegetables while scurrying off the stage*
I know nothing about Strong other than having heard his name in passing in discussions of the NeL. So thanks for that recommendation!
I can't say that while laying in a hospital bed, I remembered Posada. (Although I thought about his teammate Bernie Williams -- lots of good switch hitting CFs!) But now that you remind me of him, I'll stick with Simmons. Posada has a tiny edge in best season (0.4 bWAR) and best three seasons (0.6 cumulative) but Simmons more than catches (no pun intended) him in year four (+0.9) and a one-third longer a meaningful career: 12 years of + 3 bWAR vs. 9 such years. (Actually 8 for Posada, but I rounded up a 2.9 to lean in his direction.) bWAR of course isn't the be-all end-all of the discussion, but simple OPS+ tells the same story: Posada has one year better than Simmons best then after that Simmons is consistently a notch better.
The whole thing in Ukraine just keeps freaking me out. No matter how much the US and NATO say we won't and can't get involved in any military way, a nuclear power just started a war of expansion. There are many ways it could go wrong and suck us in, ranging from games of chicken with fighter planes to cyberattacks to Putin just lashing out. Do I think his threats of using nukes are real? No. Do I think we see US boots on the ground in Ukraine. No. Do I think this is a dangerous game for everyone and not just Ukraine? Yes.
But for now, it's Ukraine that suffers. Again. As it has frequently throughout its history. As it did in WWII and after Chernobyl and as it did so many times over the last 1,000 years.
Kind of puts all that silly stuff about baseball in perspective, doesn't it?
Ukraine isn't a NATO country of course. But what if Russia did attack one of the more eastern NATO nations. How would the US respond to an attack on, say, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania as part of recreating the Soviet empire?
We could never get enough forces there to actually stop it. I imagine there'd be some airstrikes within those nations so we could say we held up our treaty obligations, but I don't for a moment think there would be any attacks in Russia itself, because then we'd be likely to face the same kinds of attacks in the US. Other NATO allies would make the same cold calculation, and those counties would fall in short order.
The world in no longer in the same place where we were in the past when a Soviet attack on West Germany would really have led to a full scale (perhaps save nukes) war between Nato and the Soviets
I think that a hearty US presence in the Baltics might be a deterrent. But I also don't think anyone is rushing to do that. The American people have decided, for good or for ill, that we don't want our troops sucked into another war, and that will determine everything else. And it would be an US presence, and not NATO since Germany seems to be a good deal more lukewarm about things (if clearly in agreement about Putin).
I think you are right, but the very existence of thousands of nukes on both sides plus having grown up in Cold War I still fills me with dread.
You’re telling me. I remember being a kid and thinking nukes were going to drop at any time. Hopefully my kids don’t have to go through that. I also kinda remember some awful movie, ‘The Day After’ I believe, which made matters worse.
I have, my whole life, had something to freak me out (goes with being a natural worrier): the Cold War, global warming, AIDS, Ebola, Al Qaeda, more global warming, COVID. I see no reason your children should not have to grow up like I did! Look how I turned out! (Seriously, I do of course wish them a better world. And if they don't have a better world, I wish them better coping skills than I sometimes have.)
I grew up on SAC bases and fighter jets and bombers taking off and landing were literally just background noise to life. I didn't know there was any other option, so we never worried about it. I'm much more concerned today as an adult than I ever was as a kid with the Cold War raging in my back yard.
Yo "The Day After" terrified me as a kid. After seeing that movie I assumed the nukes were coming any day and we were all boned. And this was in the 90's so it wasn't even at the high of the hysteria.
I watched The Day After while living at Kwajalein Missile Range. There was a Soviet spy ship not so cleverly disguised as a fishing trawler that basically lived 3 miles off shore. We used to watch it in a telescope for fun. We also used to gather on the beach to watch the test multi-warhead cruise missiles come screaming into the atmosphere after being launched from California, creating a spectacular light show as 8-15 or so warheads separated from the ICBM and streaked through the sky into the ocean. Probably wasn't so healthy to be so relaxed about nuclear annihilation, but not sure being scared was better given the places I lived growing up.
We all have to come to terms with the potential of annihilation in our own ways.
My mom grew up doing inane "duck and cover" drills when she was in school, and growing up in the northern suburbs of Chicago everyone knew they were high on the target list. When neighbors were building bomb shelters, she asked her dad if he'd ever considered it, and he said no because a) they'd be hit so hard early that the entire city would be a smoking crater before they fully realized what was happening, and b) since nothing would be left, he didn't really want to survive a full-scale nuclear war. Oddly it was reassuring to realize you'd be gone no matter what, so investing in a little hole in the ground was basically a waste of time and money.
Ukraine no. We won't get involved (directly) in fighting in Ukraine.
But the Baltics are another story. NATO is only effective when Article 5 (an attack on any given NATO signatory is treated as attack on all, including the US) is credible. That means, that if we have to start a nuclear war over a Russian incursion into Lithuania because they want a landbridge to Kaliningrad, to pick a not entirely random issue, that's what we have to do. Unless the Russians REALLY BELIEVE that they could lose Moscow over grabby land policies in the Baltics or Poland, they're going to push it.
That's the way NATO is supposed to work. And as you suggest it would be the most ballsy move ever, given the stakes, for Russia to push into Lithuania and risk nuclear war. But if they did, I'm not at all sure we would follow through with attacks on Mother Russia itself. Because if we did, that would be the second ballsiest move ever.
I'd say first ballsiest, because if you did it you'd probably strike something symbolic (not Moscow, you need to leave someone to negotiate with; maybe St. Petersburg, or Kaliningrad itself, "Here, enjoy your free complimentary crater") and HOPE the response to three Minuteman III missiles isn't an arsenal emptying countermove.
There is no such thing as a limited nuclear exchange in the post-WW2 order, pick an order any order. This is all horribly depressing. I imagine a Russian attack on Lithuania would be highly telegraphed, and depending on how the stronger military NATO nations would act in sending troops and materiel there would determine whether there would be a shooting war. You'd have a NATO-enforced no-fly zone to be sure. Would Russia test that? You tell me.
Add $10k a year to minimum salaries? That's 1.5%. That doesn't even keep up with inflation these days. It would result in an effective pay cut for minimum salary guys.
All I said was, if the players are so bad off because their pay raises aren't meeting inflation, they can take welfare and food stamps.
It's perfectly acceptable for someone who is poor and not making a living wage of $700,000 to be on welfare and food stamps. You shouldn't attach a stigma to it.
What's your problem with poor people? Looking down on the underprivileged is just wrong. What kind of person are you? They obviously can't make a living wage and support their families. You're not a good person. Not at all.
Joe Sheehan wrote the other day that the players' last proposal was already a loss for them, that even if they got the ~$775K they asked for and such, the revenue growth for MLB overall would be likely to outstrip their anticipated raises. If so, the smart play for the owners to make would be to take the players up on their offer, thereby winning the PR war in a single stroke, but also winning the long-term war in that they will still make a greater percentage of the profits than the players want them to for much of the next half decade or more.
Some fun but largely forgotten players in that list.
Davey Lopes didn't get a full time job until he was 28. He walked, he ran, and he hit with (for the era) very good power for a 2B. His 47 steals at age 40 are, I think, the record.
Willie Wilson may well be the fastest player I ever saw. Either him or Billy Hamilton. But Wilson was a good player while Hamilton wasn't. Wilson came up as a LF but not because he couldn't play center (see Tim Raines, Lou Brock, Barry Bonds, Lonnie Smith as examples of very fast players who couldn't play CF) but because the Royals had Amos Otis already. Had Wilson come up as a CF and had Walt Hriniak not gotten into an ego war with Whitey Herzog, Wilson would be in Cooperstown.
Tony Womack is at or near the top of the list for weirdest batting stances of my lifetime.
Eric Davis will never be forgotten by my generation of fans. But simply can't be understood by anyone younger.
Some players aim for a World Series ring; some say induction into Cooperstown is baseball's highest honor, but Bradley tops all that! Phil Bradley has the uber-important achievement of anchoring your not-so-humble poster's first ABPA winning team back in the mid 1980s.
You nailed it, nobody else even had 40 steals at age 40+.
Only 13 seasons in which a 40+ year old has had at least 20 steals, and Rickey and Lopes combined for 5 of those 13 seasons. Some pretty good names on that list!
I dunno about the Walt Hriniak stuff, but Bill James blames the hiring of Lee May as hitting coach on Wilson's transformation from a .320-hitter into a .265 hitter with 5 HR a year:
"Worse yet, in the mid-1980s the Royals hired Lee May as a hitting coach. Lee May legitimized Wilson’s fantasies about being a real hitter, taught him to drive the ball hard to the outfield, so that somebody could run under it and catch it. His batting average dropped 50 points overnight, but Wilson thought it was cool because he was hitting the ball so much harder than he used to."
Well, there will be no movement on the Competitive Balance Tax unless and until the owners appreciate that the players will not cave on it...or the players do cave on it. The latter isn't out of the question.
I sadly expect the players to cave at some point, since the salary they lose cannot be restored while the owners lose nothing from the value of their investments. Lacking a firebrand like Marvin Miller, no one will be able to keep the players from giving in too soon.
Can be, maybe. But the owners are making it clear lost salary is lost salary, and usually wages lost in a labor disagreement are gone unless specifically negotiated.
I don't know for SURE that players won't cave, but the owners will absolutely lose things. Most of them are highly leveraged from buying their teams with debt and most of them have large expenses from outside investments and projects like real estate. They also have large stakeholders like casinos now who will demand that the spice flow. There is a lot of pressure on the owners.
It's also worth noting that the owners are not a unified block. It only requires eight hardliners -- and there are around 10 or so total hardliners -- to hold this line they're currently holding. There are many owners who, once that pressure builds, will lean hard on the hardliners.
I don't know that there's a definitive list but it's well known that Dick Monfort (Rockies) and Jerry Reinsdorf (White Sox) are among them. Many suspect the Dbacks, Guardians, and some other smaller market owners to be in that club too. In 2020 there were six owners who reportedly didn't want to play the season at all, and that group is likely a subset of the hardliners.
There is probably a lot of overlap between the "hardliners" and the owners who did not originally support Rob Manfred's bid to become commissioner. I'm too lazy to pull up the names, but there were about 10 who didn't vote for him in the original balloting.
Reinsdorf has been at the forefront of efforts to completely break the union since before the 1994 strike. He was, IIRC, behind the stupid contraction effort at the next CBA.
Funny how no one is talking about the pressure on the owners or the divisions. It's like the media has a specific narrative. (I know more about divisions in NATO over sanctions than I do about the baseball owners about the players. That strikes me as amusing in an ironic way.)
I consider Tyler Kepner to be a competent writer for the NYT as a columnist & on the national MLB beat. *Even* he, over the weekend went to "the players and the owners, for the good of the game ..." doing his best Olney, Nightengale, AP impersonation.
Aside from teams playing an uneven number of game if they just shortened to season like in 1972, that would also result in an unequal number of home games. Which would make the fans and players salty for competitive balance reasons, and make the owners really salty for revenue from home games reasons.
There’s been a lot of “ignoring what people actually say” and trying to pretend “that’s not what they actually mean” for quite a while now. Unfettered immigration into Europe is a good example and it is politically incorrect for me to mention it, so I apologize in advance.
Europe has the kind of immigration issue the GOP likes to imagine we have in the USA.
Yet somehow I continue to be told that Republicans are "winning the culture war" and that Democrats are poised to lose control of both houses of Congress. Between the blatant big picture stuff and this nonsense, it's utterly baffling.
Because there are enough people in the "Yeah, that Republican politician believes *insert repugnant belief(s) here*, but lower taxes and pro-business" camp, true or not, and the "But at least they are not a Democrat" camp, to give the party power its real base would otherwise not allow.
Greg Abbott is a Republican politician, so it is likely that everything he does is done in bad faith.
But there are items in that letter that do not need an evil mind for agreement. We want to follow science, to give children the best lives possible. But we are still at the experimental stage in a rapidly changing environment. We haven't any long-term studies. We have no idea how many trans people will regret or detransition. Even the idea that it is permitted to legally transition without changing body is a very new option.
For a young girl to have her womb removed is a big thing. It may be self-harm or it may not be. We won't know whether it's a good thing until we have compared girls who do that with girls who are told that they must wait until they are adults. And such a study may forever be regarded as unethical and forbidden.
Before we answer these questions, we need to listen to a lot of trans and former trans people.
But yes, let's get rid of Greg Abbott by all means. And definitely fight against hatred wherever it exists.
The questions are legit but simply because of the irreversibility. I have some of those same questions, but I also admit that I have not sought the a swers and so to expresss any opinion on the underlying issue would be ignorant. The research may be there, but I haven't seen it and frankly I think any reports would be anecdotal, and not the basis for public policy.
Thus, my feeling about Abbott's decree is the same as I feel about abortion: a transgender procedure is a decision that must be left to the individuals involved, parents and children. Unless there is an indicia that parents are forcing an unwilling child (as with genital mutilation in some cultures) there is no basis for child abuse inquiries.
I should clarify: I meant I know very little about it, so in reading Abbott's decree and the Texas AG opinion my first question would be, "What are we talking about?" Then, among other inquiries, "Is there any evidence of a problem requiring state intervention?"
I apologize because I realize that my wording implied I was looking but not finding information. I admit ignorance, from which point I will always start with questions.
Questions are legit when they seek info with an open mind, but as you say, they are not legit when disingenuously designed to avoid knowing. To wit, Aaron Rogers and others who are simply antivax.
They are not legit because nobody's out there giving trans kids irreversible surgeries! Everyone relies on the WPATH standards of care, and those say to wait until the kid a) is at least 18 years old and b) has socially transitioned and lived as their true gender for at least a year.
I'd suggest that focusing on womb removal (or on castration) is not the most productive way to begin a discussion of the transgender experience. That plays to the pruriently sensational fantasies of violent transphobes.
A good place to start and a person to learn from is Dr. Izzy Lowell.
1. No treatment recommendations include any surgical options for minors - the possibility is only ever raised by fearmongers as a scare tactic. Medical care is almost always only done for kids who have already reached puberty and primarily involve puberty blockers which reversibly pause puberty, or hormone treatments that act slowly. (https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc)
The problem with your argument is that even if it’s taken in good faith, Abbott’s bill does not say “prohibit trans minors from having irreversible medical procedures.” (From what I’ve read, those are uncommon in minors anyway, and certainly at the ages that fearmongers like to throw out to pretend that 8-year-olds are getting surgery for it).
As written, it authorizes and even impels harassment of all trans kids, including those who may just be dressing differently and using a different name/pronoun. Last time I checked, your clothes and your name aren’t irreversible. Also, in practice it’s going to be used as a weapon against the larger LBTQ community and even kids who might not be part of that community at all but just don’t conform to strict “traditional” gender roles.
I loved Stro on the Mets and wanted him back. Seemed like he wanted to be here, local guy, blasted the Yankees whenever he got the opportunity, and was pretty good. Not sure what took place, but this seems like sour grapes for not getting the kind of dough he thought he would and is lashing out at the Mets and uncle Stevie for not giving it to him.
I think he was kinda forced to keep Alderson and Co. around because other owners didn’t really want him involved in their ‘club’. Hopefully, in due time, that is proven correct and he cleans house.
When I went to see The Avengers and found myself so very bored, I started thinking about those insurance questions too. I’m glad I’m not alone, though I am not an insurance agent.
Oh, and Greg Abbott can go copulate with an old school, rusty pencil sharpener.
I'm pretty sure I remember that being one of the original concepts of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. While the heroes are off hero-ing, what are the normies doing?
To me, the MLB lockout and the Ukraine war seem similar in some ways. In both cases you have American trust fund baby billionaires who are used to having their way underestimating the determination of an opponent whose livelihood is at stake. Clearly, the stakes are not the same, but there’s a lot of hubris in both cases. I feel for the people of Ukraine, who are the pawns in all this, and I hope we can resolve this thing peacefully soon.
I live in Texas. Houston to be exact. Governor Abbott is what happens when Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson produce offspring. He can't seem to find the legs to stand up and do the right thing. Oh, wait...
I agree. However this evil fucking man has sold his soul and played on his own different ability in the names of power and hate. He gets no sympathy from me. I apologize to those not named Greg Abbott.
This is really geeking out, especially with all of the real world stuff, but the damage in the Marvel universe is sort of accounted for, at least in the comics. There is an org called Damage Control that goes around cleaning up the messes. Created by the late great writer Dwayne McDuffie. It's kind of referenced in one of the Spider-Man movies, the one where MIchael Keaton plays the Vulture. Wow, who am I?......
I, a very casual fan who has seen maybe half the MCU movies pitched an idea to my friend a huge comic book nerd the idea for a series about PI attorneys who sue superheros for personal and property damage. He told me the problem was there were already several lawyers in the superhero universe. He neglected to mention the other problem, it would be so boring and dumb no one would read it.
Sitting here drinking coffee trying to figure out what I am going to say to my students as we start discussing Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” later this morning.
so the only joy in our world right now is... BURNLEY?? D:
Just no.
That was a fun one yesterday. I thought Spurs were going to tie it about a dozen different times, especially after Rodriguez missed that shot from short range. (It wasn't an easy chance, but I think he'd tell you that he should hit the target from there.)
I think Dyche is always entertaining so it was good to see him get the points, hopefully they'll be able to stay up.
Yeah, watching it I thought that Kulusevski could have scored 3 goals if he'd had slightly better luck. Couple of great blocks and a 3rd shot that barely went wide.
But you're right, it definitely wouldn't have been fun for a Burnley or Spurs supporter to watch! (Until the end, I suppose)
Spurs fan concurs. Not fun at all.
My B.S. in Physics has me going "There's no way in hell that person is going to be able to swing that giant weapon, I don't care how strong they are or what it's made of" and "that car is totaled; there's no way in heck you're still going to be able to drive it" quite often.
We metallurgists see a whole bunch of things that either *can't* exist, like Vibranium, or would not function the way they're depicted. Gold-titanium alloys, for example, are strong but necessarily brittle, and therefore not useful for anything like armor, since it would shatter at first impact.
I mean, I get that it's comic book fantasy, so I don't complain about the plotlines involving Norse gods or portals across the multiverse, but I draw the line at some imaginary metal that presumably has like 26.5 Protons.
Since we're griping, there's NO WAY you can fold up that giant robot into that little car - especially when you want it to work BOTH as a car AND a giant robot.....
Seriously! Where do all the hydraulics go??!? What happens to the electronics the first time it gets blasted by something? And how does a girl who spends literally all of her spare time in a mechanic's shop NOT notice that the rusty old Camaro she just bought has no engine under the hood?!?!
Nothing nearly as serious as what has been occurring at Casa Calcaterra, but I spent yesterday in the hospital undergoing a minor out-patient spinal procedure. Because they were running late, they let me hang onto my cell phone while waiting for the OR to open up. So I got to spent much of the time reading and briefly responding to the musings here. Nice way to take my mind off of it.
So after they started the (very light) sedation I was trying to play mind games to keep from thinking about what they were doing. And the game was: what is the all-time Switch Hitting lineup. Here is where I got:
Utl: Rose
C: Simmons
1B: Murray
2B: Alomar
SS: Smith
3B: Jones
LF: Raines
CF: Mantle
Then I got stuck. Do I move Reggie Smith or Carlos Beltran out of position to RF? Both played there some but had their best years in CF. How about DH? Do I use a player who really was a DH, like Chili Davis or Ken Singleton? Or can I take the criminally underrated Lance Berkman, who, like Rose, didn't really have a position?
At which point, they stuck a needle into my spine and I stopped thinking about baseball.
Move Beltran to right. Not that uncommon for a team to have two capable centerfielders with one playing right. And a vote for Berkman at DH. Seems wrong to leave him off for a “true DH.”
Never mind. I just re-read and proved that attention span limits are somewhat short of three sentences and definitely don't reach four.
"minor surgery" is when it's on someone else.
-- Woody Allen (maybe)
No worries, considering that there was a needle in your fucking spine. Hope you recover quickly!
Yes, by the gods, put Beltran in any way you can! The Milwaukee Brewers outfield's defensive success these past years shows that so long as you have one great defender in the outfield - not necessarily at CF - the other two outfielders get better as well. As for switch-hitting DH? Right now I can't think of a better answer than Lance Berkman, but honestly Jose Ramirez of Cleveland is nearly as good a hitter right now as Berkman was, just obviously hasn't had as long a stretch of great hitting, and Jose could even get better yet.
So of course, because it's baseball, I went to b ref and looked into both dudes' splits. Thing I learned today: Berkman was great from the right side (995 OPS), but a has a .777 OPS from the left. Jose Ramirez is 858 from the right, 851 from the left. What I take away from this is that Lance still gets the edge, but his splits are very pronounced. Dare I say that Jose Ramirez is almost as good, and perhaps just as *useful* because his splits are more even? Somebody should run the numbers.
"What kind of switch hitter would you rather have - one who is absolutely elite from one side but league average from the other, or one who is very good from both sides but not MVP-caliber from either?"
Chipper Jones is, I believe, the only switch hitter with a meaningful career who batted over .300 from both sides of the plate. He had a little edge in power from the left side but not a huge one.
This makes me wish we could somehow re-run Berkman's career with him batting right-handed only. Would he have been better off not trying to switch hit?
wishing you a safe and speedy recovery!
Personally, I'd prefer Jorge Posada at Catcher, who was slightly better than Simmons at their peaks, though Simmons obviously had the longer (and Hall of Fame worthy) career.
But here's a fun alternative for RF:
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/s/stronte01.shtml
https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Ted_Strong
Ted Strong was a perennial Negro League All-Star who hit for average, power and speed, winning the Negro AL triple crown in 1942 as a right fielder for the Kansas City Monarchs, with a considerable amount of other "black ink" on his BB-ref page. One of the years he played in Mexico he hit .332 and tied Josh Gibson for the league lead with 11 HR.
Obviously, you can hardly go wrong with Beltran, but as you can see, Ted is a (ahem...) Strong candidate, too. ;-)
*ducks hurled vegetables while scurrying off the stage*
I know nothing about Strong other than having heard his name in passing in discussions of the NeL. So thanks for that recommendation!
I can't say that while laying in a hospital bed, I remembered Posada. (Although I thought about his teammate Bernie Williams -- lots of good switch hitting CFs!) But now that you remind me of him, I'll stick with Simmons. Posada has a tiny edge in best season (0.4 bWAR) and best three seasons (0.6 cumulative) but Simmons more than catches (no pun intended) him in year four (+0.9) and a one-third longer a meaningful career: 12 years of + 3 bWAR vs. 9 such years. (Actually 8 for Posada, but I rounded up a 2.9 to lean in his direction.) bWAR of course isn't the be-all end-all of the discussion, but simple OPS+ tells the same story: Posada has one year better than Simmons best then after that Simmons is consistently a notch better.
The whole thing in Ukraine just keeps freaking me out. No matter how much the US and NATO say we won't and can't get involved in any military way, a nuclear power just started a war of expansion. There are many ways it could go wrong and suck us in, ranging from games of chicken with fighter planes to cyberattacks to Putin just lashing out. Do I think his threats of using nukes are real? No. Do I think we see US boots on the ground in Ukraine. No. Do I think this is a dangerous game for everyone and not just Ukraine? Yes.
But for now, it's Ukraine that suffers. Again. As it has frequently throughout its history. As it did in WWII and after Chernobyl and as it did so many times over the last 1,000 years.
Kind of puts all that silly stuff about baseball in perspective, doesn't it?
Taiwan is next.
Ukraine isn't a NATO country of course. But what if Russia did attack one of the more eastern NATO nations. How would the US respond to an attack on, say, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania as part of recreating the Soviet empire?
We could never get enough forces there to actually stop it. I imagine there'd be some airstrikes within those nations so we could say we held up our treaty obligations, but I don't for a moment think there would be any attacks in Russia itself, because then we'd be likely to face the same kinds of attacks in the US. Other NATO allies would make the same cold calculation, and those counties would fall in short order.
The world in no longer in the same place where we were in the past when a Soviet attack on West Germany would really have led to a full scale (perhaps save nukes) war between Nato and the Soviets
I think that a hearty US presence in the Baltics might be a deterrent. But I also don't think anyone is rushing to do that. The American people have decided, for good or for ill, that we don't want our troops sucked into another war, and that will determine everything else. And it would be an US presence, and not NATO since Germany seems to be a good deal more lukewarm about things (if clearly in agreement about Putin).
I think you are right, but the very existence of thousands of nukes on both sides plus having grown up in Cold War I still fills me with dread.
You’re telling me. I remember being a kid and thinking nukes were going to drop at any time. Hopefully my kids don’t have to go through that. I also kinda remember some awful movie, ‘The Day After’ I believe, which made matters worse.
I have, my whole life, had something to freak me out (goes with being a natural worrier): the Cold War, global warming, AIDS, Ebola, Al Qaeda, more global warming, COVID. I see no reason your children should not have to grow up like I did! Look how I turned out! (Seriously, I do of course wish them a better world. And if they don't have a better world, I wish them better coping skills than I sometimes have.)
I want to make the world better for my children. But not my children's chidren, because children shouldn't be having sex - Jack Handy
I grew up on SAC bases and fighter jets and bombers taking off and landing were literally just background noise to life. I didn't know there was any other option, so we never worried about it. I'm much more concerned today as an adult than I ever was as a kid with the Cold War raging in my back yard.
The Day After was filmed in and around my hometown. We could look out the front door and see two missle silos.
Then I worked with nukes in the Army every day.
Never really thought much about it until Hollywood told us it was an issue.
Yo "The Day After" terrified me as a kid. After seeing that movie I assumed the nukes were coming any day and we were all boned. And this was in the 90's so it wasn't even at the high of the hysteria.
I watched The Day After while living at Kwajalein Missile Range. There was a Soviet spy ship not so cleverly disguised as a fishing trawler that basically lived 3 miles off shore. We used to watch it in a telescope for fun. We also used to gather on the beach to watch the test multi-warhead cruise missiles come screaming into the atmosphere after being launched from California, creating a spectacular light show as 8-15 or so warheads separated from the ICBM and streaked through the sky into the ocean. Probably wasn't so healthy to be so relaxed about nuclear annihilation, but not sure being scared was better given the places I lived growing up.
We all have to come to terms with the potential of annihilation in our own ways.
My mom grew up doing inane "duck and cover" drills when she was in school, and growing up in the northern suburbs of Chicago everyone knew they were high on the target list. When neighbors were building bomb shelters, she asked her dad if he'd ever considered it, and he said no because a) they'd be hit so hard early that the entire city would be a smoking crater before they fully realized what was happening, and b) since nothing would be left, he didn't really want to survive a full-scale nuclear war. Oddly it was reassuring to realize you'd be gone no matter what, so investing in a little hole in the ground was basically a waste of time and money.
Yup, I have some serious GenXer repressed childhood fears coming out.
Ukraine no. We won't get involved (directly) in fighting in Ukraine.
But the Baltics are another story. NATO is only effective when Article 5 (an attack on any given NATO signatory is treated as attack on all, including the US) is credible. That means, that if we have to start a nuclear war over a Russian incursion into Lithuania because they want a landbridge to Kaliningrad, to pick a not entirely random issue, that's what we have to do. Unless the Russians REALLY BELIEVE that they could lose Moscow over grabby land policies in the Baltics or Poland, they're going to push it.
That's the way NATO is supposed to work. And as you suggest it would be the most ballsy move ever, given the stakes, for Russia to push into Lithuania and risk nuclear war. But if they did, I'm not at all sure we would follow through with attacks on Mother Russia itself. Because if we did, that would be the second ballsiest move ever.
I'd say first ballsiest, because if you did it you'd probably strike something symbolic (not Moscow, you need to leave someone to negotiate with; maybe St. Petersburg, or Kaliningrad itself, "Here, enjoy your free complimentary crater") and HOPE the response to three Minuteman III missiles isn't an arsenal emptying countermove.
There is no such thing as a limited nuclear exchange in the post-WW2 order, pick an order any order. This is all horribly depressing. I imagine a Russian attack on Lithuania would be highly telegraphed, and depending on how the stronger military NATO nations would act in sending troops and materiel there would determine whether there would be a shooting war. You'd have a NATO-enforced no-fly zone to be sure. Would Russia test that? You tell me.
Add $10k a year to minimum salaries? That's 1.5%. That doesn't even keep up with inflation these days. It would result in an effective pay cut for minimum salary guys.
Well, they could always sign up for welfare and food stamps.
All I said was, if the players are so bad off because their pay raises aren't meeting inflation, they can take welfare and food stamps.
It's perfectly acceptable for someone who is poor and not making a living wage of $700,000 to be on welfare and food stamps. You shouldn't attach a stigma to it.
What's your problem with poor people? Looking down on the underprivileged is just wrong. What kind of person are you? They obviously can't make a living wage and support their families. You're not a good person. Not at all.
I don't remember anyone having a rant about the owners being underpaid.
Some of those people who look down on the underprivileged are Americans, and you're saying they're wrong, bro? Why do you hate America?
And buy used Porsches.
Joe Sheehan wrote the other day that the players' last proposal was already a loss for them, that even if they got the ~$775K they asked for and such, the revenue growth for MLB overall would be likely to outstrip their anticipated raises. If so, the smart play for the owners to make would be to take the players up on their offer, thereby winning the PR war in a single stroke, but also winning the long-term war in that they will still make a greater percentage of the profits than the players want them to for much of the next half decade or more.
RIP Julio Cruz. The all-time top 10 Seattle base-stealers:
Ichiro Suzuki 438 81.87% 2001-2012, 2018-2019
Julio Cruz 290 83.10% 1977-1983
Harold Reynolds 228 65.52% 1983-1992
Ken Griffey Jr. 167 73.57% 1989-1999, 2009-2010
Alex Rodriguez 133 78.70% 1994-2000
Phil Bradley 107 72.79% 1983-1987
Mike Cameron 106 79.70% 2000-2003
Henry Cotto 102 84.30% 1988-1993
Rich Amaral 97 75.78% 1991-1998
Mark McLemore 92 71.88% 2000-2003
So Cruz had about as many stolen bases as Griffey and A-Rod combined, but his stolen-base percentage was better than either of them.
And, since records began around 1950, only nine other players have had as many bases and as good a percentage as Cruz:
Tim Raines 808 84.70% 1979-2002
Willie Wilson 668 83.29% 1976-1994
Davey Lopes 557 83.01% 1972-1987
Carl Crawford 480 81.49% 2002-2016
Jimmy Rollins 470 81.74% 2000-2016
Barry Larkin 379 83.11% 1986-2004
Tony Womack 363 83.07% 1993-2006
Eric Davis 349 84.10% 1984-2001
Jacoby Ellsbury343 82.85% 2007-2017
Julio Cruz 343 81.47% 1977-1986
Some fun but largely forgotten players in that list.
Davey Lopes didn't get a full time job until he was 28. He walked, he ran, and he hit with (for the era) very good power for a 2B. His 47 steals at age 40 are, I think, the record.
Willie Wilson may well be the fastest player I ever saw. Either him or Billy Hamilton. But Wilson was a good player while Hamilton wasn't. Wilson came up as a LF but not because he couldn't play center (see Tim Raines, Lou Brock, Barry Bonds, Lonnie Smith as examples of very fast players who couldn't play CF) but because the Royals had Amos Otis already. Had Wilson come up as a CF and had Walt Hriniak not gotten into an ego war with Whitey Herzog, Wilson would be in Cooperstown.
Tony Womack is at or near the top of the list for weirdest batting stances of my lifetime.
Eric Davis will never be forgotten by my generation of fans. But simply can't be understood by anyone younger.
Some players aim for a World Series ring; some say induction into Cooperstown is baseball's highest honor, but Bradley tops all that! Phil Bradley has the uber-important achievement of anchoring your not-so-humble poster's first ABPA winning team back in the mid 1980s.
You could say he 'quarter-backed' the team.
Now that is a historical deep cut reference!
You nailed it, nobody else even had 40 steals at age 40+.
Only 13 seasons in which a 40+ year old has had at least 20 steals, and Rickey and Lopes combined for 5 of those 13 seasons. Some pretty good names on that list!
https://stathead.com/tiny/XpLXp
I dunno about the Walt Hriniak stuff, but Bill James blames the hiring of Lee May as hitting coach on Wilson's transformation from a .320-hitter into a .265 hitter with 5 HR a year:
"Worse yet, in the mid-1980s the Royals hired Lee May as a hitting coach. Lee May legitimized Wilson’s fantasies about being a real hitter, taught him to drive the ball hard to the outfield, so that somebody could run under it and catch it. His batting average dropped 50 points overnight, but Wilson thought it was cool because he was hitting the ball so much harder than he used to."
Well, there will be no movement on the Competitive Balance Tax unless and until the owners appreciate that the players will not cave on it...or the players do cave on it. The latter isn't out of the question.
I sadly expect the players to cave at some point, since the salary they lose cannot be restored while the owners lose nothing from the value of their investments. Lacking a firebrand like Marvin Miller, no one will be able to keep the players from giving in too soon.
"[T]he salary they lose cannot be restored." Yes it can.
Can be, maybe. But the owners are making it clear lost salary is lost salary, and usually wages lost in a labor disagreement are gone unless specifically negotiated.
I don't know for SURE that players won't cave, but the owners will absolutely lose things. Most of them are highly leveraged from buying their teams with debt and most of them have large expenses from outside investments and projects like real estate. They also have large stakeholders like casinos now who will demand that the spice flow. There is a lot of pressure on the owners.
It's also worth noting that the owners are not a unified block. It only requires eight hardliners -- and there are around 10 or so total hardliners -- to hold this line they're currently holding. There are many owners who, once that pressure builds, will lean hard on the hardliners.
Who are the hardliners?
I don't know that there's a definitive list but it's well known that Dick Monfort (Rockies) and Jerry Reinsdorf (White Sox) are among them. Many suspect the Dbacks, Guardians, and some other smaller market owners to be in that club too. In 2020 there were six owners who reportedly didn't want to play the season at all, and that group is likely a subset of the hardliners.
If they can’t survive and pay the players what they deserve, without big market handouts, they should be forced to sell.
There is probably a lot of overlap between the "hardliners" and the owners who did not originally support Rob Manfred's bid to become commissioner. I'm too lazy to pull up the names, but there were about 10 who didn't vote for him in the original balloting.
Reinsdorf has been at the forefront of efforts to completely break the union since before the 1994 strike. He was, IIRC, behind the stupid contraction effort at the next CBA.
Funny how no one is talking about the pressure on the owners or the divisions. It's like the media has a specific narrative. (I know more about divisions in NATO over sanctions than I do about the baseball owners about the players. That strikes me as amusing in an ironic way.)
I consider Tyler Kepner to be a competent writer for the NYT as a columnist & on the national MLB beat. *Even* he, over the weekend went to "the players and the owners, for the good of the game ..." doing his best Olney, Nightengale, AP impersonation.
Aside from teams playing an uneven number of game if they just shortened to season like in 1972, that would also result in an unequal number of home games. Which would make the fans and players salty for competitive balance reasons, and make the owners really salty for revenue from home games reasons.
My first, and probably only, comment in this new forum is to applaud that diatribe against Abbott and calling it what it is: evil and hate.
There’s been a lot of “ignoring what people actually say” and trying to pretend “that’s not what they actually mean” for quite a while now. Unfettered immigration into Europe is a good example and it is politically incorrect for me to mention it, so I apologize in advance.
Europe has the kind of immigration issue the GOP likes to imagine we have in the USA.
Welcome, Skel! And thanks!
Texas can reset the “days without being a national embarrassment” counter back to zero.
Has it ever climbed higher than one?
We can sometimes go 3-5 days. Usually when Florida is being extra stupid and hogging all the attention.
Maybe got to a two on a holiday weekend when the legislature is out of session?
I'm in favor of apologizing to Mexico, and offering them Texas back.
Yet somehow I continue to be told that Republicans are "winning the culture war" and that Democrats are poised to lose control of both houses of Congress. Between the blatant big picture stuff and this nonsense, it's utterly baffling.
Because there are enough people in the "Yeah, that Republican politician believes *insert repugnant belief(s) here*, but lower taxes and pro-business" camp, true or not, and the "But at least they are not a Democrat" camp, to give the party power its real base would otherwise not allow.
Because hateful bigots always, always vote.
Among other things. Like people not really believing that some politicians actually would do the awful things they keep saying they would do.
"I never thought the leopards would eat MY face!" etc. etc.
Greg Abbott is a Republican politician, so it is likely that everything he does is done in bad faith.
But there are items in that letter that do not need an evil mind for agreement. We want to follow science, to give children the best lives possible. But we are still at the experimental stage in a rapidly changing environment. We haven't any long-term studies. We have no idea how many trans people will regret or detransition. Even the idea that it is permitted to legally transition without changing body is a very new option.
For a young girl to have her womb removed is a big thing. It may be self-harm or it may not be. We won't know whether it's a good thing until we have compared girls who do that with girls who are told that they must wait until they are adults. And such a study may forever be regarded as unethical and forbidden.
Before we answer these questions, we need to listen to a lot of trans and former trans people.
But yes, let's get rid of Greg Abbott by all means. And definitely fight against hatred wherever it exists.
please for your own sake learn more about this before posting about it. the time for "just asking questions" has come and gone
The questions are legit but simply because of the irreversibility. I have some of those same questions, but I also admit that I have not sought the a swers and so to expresss any opinion on the underlying issue would be ignorant. The research may be there, but I haven't seen it and frankly I think any reports would be anecdotal, and not the basis for public policy.
Thus, my feeling about Abbott's decree is the same as I feel about abortion: a transgender procedure is a decision that must be left to the individuals involved, parents and children. Unless there is an indicia that parents are forcing an unwilling child (as with genital mutilation in some cultures) there is no basis for child abuse inquiries.
I should clarify: I meant I know very little about it, so in reading Abbott's decree and the Texas AG opinion my first question would be, "What are we talking about?" Then, among other inquiries, "Is there any evidence of a problem requiring state intervention?"
I apologize because I realize that my wording implied I was looking but not finding information. I admit ignorance, from which point I will always start with questions.
Questions are legit when they seek info with an open mind, but as you say, they are not legit when disingenuously designed to avoid knowing. To wit, Aaron Rogers and others who are simply antivax.
They are not legit because nobody's out there giving trans kids irreversible surgeries! Everyone relies on the WPATH standards of care, and those say to wait until the kid a) is at least 18 years old and b) has socially transitioned and lived as their true gender for at least a year.
And your comment is a perfect example of a question being answered.
I'd suggest that focusing on womb removal (or on castration) is not the most productive way to begin a discussion of the transgender experience. That plays to the pruriently sensational fantasies of violent transphobes.
A good place to start and a person to learn from is Dr. Izzy Lowell.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/republicans-bills-attacks-trans-care-teens-queer-med-izzy-lowell/
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/why-is-this-happening/treating-trans-youth-dr-izzy-lowell-podcast-transcript-n1289635
https://queermed.com/
1. No treatment recommendations include any surgical options for minors - the possibility is only ever raised by fearmongers as a scare tactic. Medical care is almost always only done for kids who have already reached puberty and primarily involve puberty blockers which reversibly pause puberty, or hormone treatments that act slowly. (https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc)
2. Studies of long-term effects of gender-affirming hormone treatments (like this one: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1054139X21005681?via%3Dihub) find significantly reduced rates of depression and suicidal ideation among kids who have access to it.
3. Trans people detransition at vanishingly small rates, estimated between 1-5%. Over 80% do so due to external pressures, like an unaccepting family, and over 60% *re-transition* later. (https://www.gendergp.com/detransition-facts/, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8213007/, https://transequality.org/sites/default/files/docs/usts/USTS-Full-Report-Dec17.pdf)
"Before we answer these questions, we need to listen to a lot of trans and former trans people."
The problem is that the people making these rules are the people least willing to do this.
The problem with your argument is that even if it’s taken in good faith, Abbott’s bill does not say “prohibit trans minors from having irreversible medical procedures.” (From what I’ve read, those are uncommon in minors anyway, and certainly at the ages that fearmongers like to throw out to pretend that 8-year-olds are getting surgery for it).
As written, it authorizes and even impels harassment of all trans kids, including those who may just be dressing differently and using a different name/pronoun. Last time I checked, your clothes and your name aren’t irreversible. Also, in practice it’s going to be used as a weapon against the larger LBTQ community and even kids who might not be part of that community at all but just don’t conform to strict “traditional” gender roles.
I loved Stro on the Mets and wanted him back. Seemed like he wanted to be here, local guy, blasted the Yankees whenever he got the opportunity, and was pretty good. Not sure what took place, but this seems like sour grapes for not getting the kind of dough he thought he would and is lashing out at the Mets and uncle Stevie for not giving it to him.
I don’t know if I would go as far as calling Cohen a lateral move. Only time will tell, but I’m hopeful.
I think he was kinda forced to keep Alderson and Co. around because other owners didn’t really want him involved in their ‘club’. Hopefully, in due time, that is proven correct and he cleans house.
When I went to see The Avengers and found myself so very bored, I started thinking about those insurance questions too. I’m glad I’m not alone, though I am not an insurance agent.
Oh, and Greg Abbott can go copulate with an old school, rusty pencil sharpener.
I am sure that when he expands the policy to trans procedures in general, that might be an illegal removal of a body part.
It might be interesting to see a movie / TV series set in a world with superheroes, but it's about the day-to-day lives of the ordinary people.
I'm pretty sure I remember that being one of the original concepts of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. While the heroes are off hero-ing, what are the normies doing?
To me, the MLB lockout and the Ukraine war seem similar in some ways. In both cases you have American trust fund baby billionaires who are used to having their way underestimating the determination of an opponent whose livelihood is at stake. Clearly, the stakes are not the same, but there’s a lot of hubris in both cases. I feel for the people of Ukraine, who are the pawns in all this, and I hope we can resolve this thing peacefully soon.
I live in Texas. Houston to be exact. Governor Abbott is what happens when Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson produce offspring. He can't seem to find the legs to stand up and do the right thing. Oh, wait...
Ablesim isn't okay just because you're mocking an evil person. Abbott won't see this. Someone else in a wheelchair will.
I agree. However this evil fucking man has sold his soul and played on his own different ability in the names of power and hate. He gets no sympathy from me. I apologize to those not named Greg Abbott.
This is really geeking out, especially with all of the real world stuff, but the damage in the Marvel universe is sort of accounted for, at least in the comics. There is an org called Damage Control that goes around cleaning up the messes. Created by the late great writer Dwayne McDuffie. It's kind of referenced in one of the Spider-Man movies, the one where MIchael Keaton plays the Vulture. Wow, who am I?......
I, a very casual fan who has seen maybe half the MCU movies pitched an idea to my friend a huge comic book nerd the idea for a series about PI attorneys who sue superheros for personal and property damage. He told me the problem was there were already several lawyers in the superhero universe. He neglected to mention the other problem, it would be so boring and dumb no one would read it.
Sitting here drinking coffee trying to figure out what I am going to say to my students as we start discussing Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children” later this morning.