Cy Young, some signings, the push to create gambling addicts, the Queen's "new phase," Thanos, "Achtung Baby," Gosar, crypto dudes, James Bond, and time slips
I saw Spectre in the theater when it came out and haven't seen it since, but I remember being disappointed that the bad guy from Sherlock wasn't used more. At least that's my recollection of it. I should go back and watch the Daniel Craig movies over the holidays.
And yes, fWAR has them essentially tied. Which, fine, although I tend to think the two versions measure slightly different things. fWAR strips performance down to the fundamentals, perhaps providing a better accounting of what the pitcher controls and being more predictive in the short-term future, at the expense of giving pitchers no credit for noisier results that they may at least have partial control over. bWAR is more descriptive of what actually happened, while perhaps giving pitchers too much credit for the noisy components.
I'm a Yankees fan, so I've seen a lot of Cole. He's a great pitcher, but stumbled on a couple outings down the stretch.
That being said, I'd still be interested in seeing how he grades out on the advanced metrics, but have no idea yet, because the only WAR xERA and FIP numbers that have been posted in this thread are Ray's and Eovaldi's.
That was my thought as well. The WAR-based (nerd) argument is better for Wheeler than Burnes. Quality vs. quantity is probably the most common source of recent Cy Young arguments.
...on the future of QE2 (the monarch, not the ship), she's already said it in her remarks made live on the BBC world service on her 21st birthday, when she was still Princess Elizabeth:
... I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.
...she's there for the long haul, folks.
On "No Time to Die"', as an avid JB fan, I couldn't stand the direction of this film; walked out just before the finale: incompetent direction of a ridiculous storyline.
I remember my first listen of Achtung Baby very vividly. My father took me to the mall so I could get the cassette, we got in the car and the distorted guitar and percussion of Zoo Station start and I thought the cassette player was broken. I had to fast forward to the next track to realize that distortion was intentional. Still love that album 30 years later!
As a British person, who’s always found the concept of monarchy absurd and anachronistic, I’m glad I’ll be living in the US when she pops her clogs as the long period of enforced national grieving, where everyone will been expected to show an undeserved degree of reverence, will be unbearable. I suspect everything I like about Britain - the music, the sense of humour - will be effectively outlawed by the BBC etc for a prolonged period of time. Here’s hoping the idea of Charles on the throne finally snaps the British people out of the idea that monarchy is a good idea.
There will be SO. MUCH DRAMA. What will happen to the monarchy? Will any Commonwealth countries become republican? Will Charles try to use being King to try to influence policy? Does he want to do more than wear big hats and wave? And if he does what will the government do? And what happens to Andrew with Mommy not protecting him any more? And now that Harry retired or whatever, the active monarchy is just the direct line. Does that make it different?
That NL Cy Young looks like a philosophical disagreement, as others have noticed:
Wheeler 213.1 innings, 2.78 ERA, 2.59 FIP
Burnes 167 innings, 2.43 ERA, 1.63 FIP
So Burnes "deserved" a much better ERA than he had. But the batters kept on hitting the ball where the fielders weren't, either by luck or by bad fielding or something. Luck may regress to the mean next year- other things, not so much, not that we're talking about next year.
I would have gone with actual results and voted for Wheeler. But as I get older, I tend not to care. Next month I will have forgotten all this.
I'm not sure Craig's "Wheeler threw 27% more innings than Burnes but his ERA was only 12% worse" is a good way to look at it anyway. We should expect ERA to go up commensurate with innings pitched? If so, are a guy who had a 3.00 ERA in 100 innings and a guy who had a 6.00 ERA in 200 innings (which would be hard to do) equally valuable?
I don’t think he’s saying that at all. He’s acknowledging a difference while taking the position that the difference in one stat is not sufficient to overcome his advantage in innings.
Wheeler basically gave up an extra run every 27 innings. But he averaged nearly 7 innings a start (Burnes less than six) and made four more starts than Burnes. Some of that is down to the difference in bullpens, but Wheeler was asked to do a lot more than Burnes, and he delivered.
So let’s look at the marginal difference. Wheeler threw an additional 46.1 innings and gave up an additional 21 earned runs, accounting for a 4.08 ERA in those marginal innings. Those marginal innings didn’t need to be thrown by the Phillies marginal relievers. Leaguewide, NL relievers were good for a 4.19 ERA, but that number includes the relief aces, not the guys who would be coming in for those extra innings. In Wheeler’s specific case, he was sparing the marginal relievers for a team that had a bullpen ERA of 4.60, while Burnes was putting extra innings on the marginal relievers of a bullpen sporting a collective 4.02 ERA. As discussed elsewhere, ERA and IP are a somewhat rudimentary way of evaluating pitchers, but looking at the marginal innings isn’t a bad way to evaluate the tradeoff between rate dominance and bulk.
Exactly. If the marginal difference had shown Wheeler pitched those innings to 3.00 ERA, it would have been an argument in his favor. Had he pitched them to a 6.00 ERA, it would have been an argument in Burnes favor. Since he pitched them to about league average ERA, it's not a real convincing argument either way. And it's a somewhat a crude measure I admit.
My only point was comparing the percentage of additional innings to the percentage of higher ERA wasn't telling to me since it seemed to assume that as 1 increases the other should also increase proportionally, which I don't believe.
Yeah, I think it did require the marginal analysis to look deeper at the tradeoff, although I think you’re undervaluing league-average performance. It’s not a ton of difference, but those 46.1 marginal innings are a net positive for Wheeler, not neutral. Teams pay for league-average performance.
I mean, a higher workload does usually translate to a higher ERA. It's why you frequently see closers with ERAs in the mid 1's. If Josh Hader could give the Brewers 160 innings with the same ERA, don't you think they'd do it?
Max Scherzer may not be as pink as you (whomst amongst us?) but based on his time here in DC I think he’s remarkably enlightened as ballplayers (and people) go. I’m confident you’d mostly buy what he’s selling.
That said, if any Scherzer ever runs for Congress it’ll be Erica, who is truly a force to be reckoned with. Plus, the sight of Max as political spouse is something I’d like to see.
Your general skepticism is justified and it’s not like I’m actually friends with the Scherzers to know for sure… but based on his time here he reads like a generic center left kind of guy.
Rodgers is the great German word: fachidiot - someone who excels in his field, but ignorant outside of it. NFL media often mistakes smart football player for smart guy. I don't think he's an idiot in the normal world, but he's not smart enough to know what he doesn't know, or that acknowledging you don't know something makes you smarter than the guy who only thinks he knows something.
It's the thinking that he, a college dropout, is smarter than doctors, immunologists, epidemiologist, and scientists around the world that makes it seem like his knowledge is at least somewhat bullshit.
You can read a lot of books and watch a lot of documentaries, but if you're watching the wrong ones - ones that just support the view in your own echo chamber - you're potentially just making yourself smarter at being dumber.
It's been said that Rodgers new pal, Joe Rogan, is what dumb people think a smart person sounds like. Rodgers might be in that category.
Scherzer certainly seems like a good dude. At the same time, going back to The Last Jedi which was discussed on here a few days ago, the point seems to be never make assumptions about your heros.
My first stupid thought was "Who the heck is going to bet on a simulated sporting event where the results are generated by random numbers?" Until it downed on me that obviously most gambling is based on random events like card game draws, dice rolls, and roulette wheels, so it will surely work fine for them.
Are you implying lotteries run by private entities (the "numbers racket" is what I'm thinking of) are fixed, not random? Could be the case. I don't know much about it.
I don't think that was typically the case. When the house gets its cut either way, no need to fix the results.
I remember hearing someone talk about how, in their father's day, their friendly neighborhood organized crime syndicate would use the last X numbers of the total money bet at the racetrack the previous day, which was published in the papers at the time. That way, it's all verifiable and above-board.
Thank you. For whatever reason, I keep falling off The Sopranos. Not that it's not great and I haven't enjoyed every second I've watched; I just keep getting distracted by other shows. Haven't even gotten close to the movie yet.
Even when the house gets its cut either way, there can be incentives to fix the outcomes. Poker would seem to fall into that category, since they take a rake each hand, but the rumor always was that draws would hit more often online to keep the fish involved and pushed pots (and thus rakes) up more. I don’t believe it was ever verified, but it strikes me as a plausible incentive to rig a game that, in theory, the house should be agnostic as to the winner.
I don't really know how it works, or worked. I assumed it was similar to the current sate run daily numbers games where if you hit the right 3 or 4 digit number, you win a set payout. In which case it would have benefited the house for some number with few (or none) people betting on it rather than a number a lot of people bet on.
The race track thing seems to suggest that wasn't the case. Though I wouldn't put it beyond the mob to have someone in the newspaper print shop fudge the last few digits on the handle for them either.
Betting on multiple events based on set existing variable probabilities that have multiple interconnected outcomes. You're playing D&D for money. NERDS!
Sports scoring is not an independent event. In a baseball sim, each at bat (or pitch depending on the sim granularity) is a separate random incident but runs and winning are a cumulative measure of a series of these interconnected independent incidents. In short, baseball isn't a game of rally killing 1 run homers, regardless of what John Smoltz thinks
I see what you mean, and depending on the sophistication it could be statistically accurate. But betting on real games has the element of the unexpected, of what you think of is your own knowledge, or even cheating. Sims don't have any of that. No control and no illusion of control. I don't see how that's appealing to people. Even people who play the lottery think they have a system.
When I was in college, my roommate and I would watch the computer play itself in games of NCAA Football on the PlayStation, and we gambled on the outcome. I've gotta say, it was pretty entertaining for us!
(Alcohol may have been involved. Fine, fine - it was DEFINITELY involved.)
That's what I was thinking. Gamblers either have an emotional attachment to the bet, or (more likely) they think they have a system and can game the odds. Even with most card games, people have a system and they don't think it's random. People load dice. You're right about roulette, but even that there's the casino atmosphere.
What's the appeal in sitting on the toilet, betting on random numbers to come up?
That is really weird phrasing for the announcement about the queen, as though they are trying to find a nice way of saying she's currently pupating over the winter and will emerge early next year as Mothra, Queen of the Britons or something.
Part of me is hoping that William saw what happened to Harry and Meghan, as well as his mother, and realizes he needs to end the monarchy. It won’t be an overnight thing, but a multi-decade wind down with the monarchy officially being abolished on Christmas Day, 2066 would be a fitting bookend (and we’ll pretend Cromwell didn’t happen).
There's also the matter of LILTERALLY a thousand years of history and tradition involved. That's going to be really hard to leave behind - especially when so much of the national identity is tied up in it. There are plenty of other monarchies in the world - how many can you name? In how many of them does the monarchy have a similar influence over national culture?
I think the tourist attraction aspect factors into it. The national subsidy might be offset by the tourism. There's a hell of a lot of people who visit England for the castles, changing of guards, Tower of London, etc. Sure, the castles would still be there if the monarchy was abolished, but it would be like Disney without Mickey and Cinderella.
Eh. France abolished the monarchy and the Palace of Versailles is still a huge tourist attraction. It's not like people go to Buckingham Palace and see the Queen personally.
I thought William was part of why Harry and Meghan quit/were fired/whatever. It seems William is all in with the monarchy and takes the whole thing very seriously. I can't imagine he'd ever end it willingly, especially since Queen Elizabeth grew up with Edward and Wallis who abdicated, and that influenced her whole life.
I think in the spring they plan to announce she is in a state of suspended animation and will remain Queen in perpetuity, thus avoiding the rise of King Charles.
Hal Steinbrenner addressed the media yesterday. From what I could tell in several different articles, he more or less ruled out going after a pricey shortstop since the Yankees have good prospects in the minors, and he seems to be in favor of an even lower luxury tax threshold. Once again, the question is: have the Yankees joined everyone else now and forever in putting profit ahead of victory, even if it hurts the team's chances? Or is there something we don't know about how much money the Yankees are making? Keep in mind that baseball is the main source of revenue for the Yankees, and if the pandemic dragged down the profits, the Steinbrenners might really want to cut corners for now.
Either way, I marvel at how conservative the Yankees have become. Oh, and they are still in no rush to commit to Aaron Judge, and are just assuming that him saying he wants to be a Yankee for life is a guarantee he won't bolt next year. I think that is stupid, but what do I know?
Evil Empire is pretty much done now, nothing to worry about ... [gigundo infinity-sized new-fangled spaceship slowly emerges from dark side of planet as John Williams' "Imperial March" begins to play. bum bum bum bumpa dum bumpa dum...]
Prob just the eternal optimist Yankees fan in me, but I think they will spend this year and spend BIG.
Will be fascinating to see how it unfolds. If the Yankees are done spending at stupid levels baseball will be the poorer for it.
George Steinbrenner was a weirdo. Hal appears to be a typical son of a rich guy. Leeching every bit of personality about ownership is what's happening. They all just care about being rich and powerful. Winning baseball games has nothing to do with that.
Burnes missed 2 or 3 starts because he didn't get vaccinated and got Covid in May, before the rise of Delta and the waning of vaccine immunity. Damn moron. And FIP shouldn't be used in Cy voting. That's a hill I'll risk serious injury on, if not death. Voters should vote on what pitchers actually did, not what a formula predicts they might have done. But his other rate stats were so good... maybe I still would've voted for him over Wheeler. Idk.
My Brewers have been linked to Suzuki and as someone who remembers Norichika Aoki very fondly, he had a good little run in blue and yellow, I'm all for taking a run at some talent in from the NPB. They do need a damn right handed bat, that's an understatement.
Achtung Baby made a HUGE impression on me when I first heard it, on a mixtape my cool uncle made me. Viva the Cool Uncle Mixtape! It was one of my favorite albums during my early adolescence, by any band, period. I still really like it, but these days I come back to The Joshua Tree more when it comes to U2, an album I didn't even own until I was in my 20s.
So, FIP is *what pitchers actually did*, or at least some of it. It’s normalized to the ERA scale since baseball fans understand what a good ERA is, but it’s not some form of xERA. The problem with FIP is the simplifying assumption that pitchers have *no* control over what happens outside of the three true outcomes. That’s probably closer to the truth than ERA, which gives pitchers full credit for all outcomes, unless of course the fielder gets a glove on the ball and, in the determination of the officially scorer, fails to make a play he should have (seriously, use RA/9 if you want to give pitchers full credit for run prevention). The problem with FIP is it doesn’t care if the pitcher gives up a weak grounder to third or a bullet in the gap. The problem with ERA is it treats that bullet in the gap differently if Kevin Kiermaier covers 97 feet in 2.8 seconds to snag it than if a mere mortal picks it up off the warning track.
I like to look at both BR and FG WAR to see where they deviate. BR-WAR does at least include RA/9, so if a pitcher melts down after an error it's captured. It's also helpful for pitchers with a track record to see if they generally out/underperform their FIP, and if so, why that may be. Or what may cause a fluke. Like a high strand rate, which IMO should be credited to the pitcher even if unsustainable, or a very low BABIP due to incredible team defense, which IMO should not be credited to the pitcher.
Right, and a lot of these are things that a pitcher may control but are too noisy to detect over a season-long sample. Babip is a good one, as pitchers do exert some control over it, but defensive quality and randomness will overwhelm that skill even in a 180-200 IP sample, so it takes years to see if a pitcher truly is producing weak contact, by which point he’s likely not the same pitcher anyway. I think sequencing can be like this, too. Is the pitcher losing more going to the stretch than normal, or did he just have some bad luck?
I'm not a FIP denier and I use it to predict a bounce back season when it comes to a fantasy baseball league or what have you. I just... can't wrap my head around relying too much on a stat like that for awards given to reflect things that actually happened on the field. This is thinking which I've evolved over the years of analytics' ascendance. It would be like taking every home run hit by a slugger who hit 40 home runs and, when voting on awards, saying "well 5 of those 40 wouldn't have been home runs in most ballparks, but this other guy who only hit 37 home runs, 36 of his are home runs in every park, so he's the actual home run leader". Or something like that, maybe just award silver sluggers by barrel rate or LD%. I'm not beholden to the Golden Idol that so many (used to?) view ERA as, either. It seems that every year, some new take on defensive metrics comes out, and the quants rewrite that a little bit. That's good! We should be tweaking the formula constantly (well, they should, I'm not involved, just a fan), making it better. But for now, I prefer to take FIP with a mineful of salt when using it for *descriptive* purposes. As for *predictive* purposes, it's great.
So what I would say there is that things like the HR and ERA titles are unadjusted, rote formulae - this guy hit the most home runs, that guy allowed the fewest earned runs per nine innings among qualifiers, etc. For awards, it’s appropriate to apply at least some degree of context. Ymmv on how much to apply, of course.
Most definitely. Remember how Buehrle would always outperform his peripherals? As you alluded to in the first reply, inducing weak contact can be a thing for some guys. As well as, who's wearing the glove that ought to catch the ball, when, and where.
Loved your Kiermaier/mortal analogy (the gods hate cats, now? ;)
I still don't know who I would have voted for in the NL *or* AL Cy, for what it's all worth!
One way that I do use FIP for descriptive purposes is when deciding how much credit a pitcher deserves vs. their defense. If every pitcher on a team is outperforming their FIP, and the team has a bunch of elite defenders, I'm going to credit a larger share of the run prevention to the defense. And the opposite if the pitcher has a better FIP than ERA but is surrounded by a bunch of Adam Dunns.
I think there was a Notgraphs (or something like that) essay about someone who actually created an MLB The Show team made up entirely of Adam Dunns. Shortstoo? Adam Dunn. Center field? Adam Dunn. Catcher? Yep. Can't remember if Dunn was pitching... it was great either way.
Just adding that I'm more than willing to trash ERA somewhat as well, especially considering how we now know the horrific failure of the concept of the "earned run" has played out. Bill James 101, that.
I saw Spectre in the theater when it came out and haven't seen it since, but I remember being disappointed that the bad guy from Sherlock wasn't used more. At least that's my recollection of it. I should go back and watch the Daniel Craig movies over the holidays.
Bigmouth Strikes Again
oh brother... no chance i can pry that song from my heard in the next few hours...
"Nerds convinced us that innings don't matter!"
*looks at 2021 NL Pitching bWAR leaderboard*
"Ah, well, nevertheless."
And yes, fWAR has them essentially tied. Which, fine, although I tend to think the two versions measure slightly different things. fWAR strips performance down to the fundamentals, perhaps providing a better accounting of what the pitcher controls and being more predictive in the short-term future, at the expense of giving pitchers no credit for noisier results that they may at least have partial control over. bWAR is more descriptive of what actually happened, while perhaps giving pitchers too much credit for the noisy components.
Or not...
Ray: 3.9 fWAR, 3.55 xERA, 3.69 FIP.
Eovaldi: 5.6 fWAR, 3.37 xERA, 2.79 FIP.
Try to keep up: "Very probably Cole was the best pitcher in the AL"
I'm a Yankees fan, so I've seen a lot of Cole. He's a great pitcher, but stumbled on a couple outings down the stretch.
That being said, I'd still be interested in seeing how he grades out on the advanced metrics, but have no idea yet, because the only WAR xERA and FIP numbers that have been posted in this thread are Ray's and Eovaldi's.
That was my thought as well. The WAR-based (nerd) argument is better for Wheeler than Burnes. Quality vs. quantity is probably the most common source of recent Cy Young arguments.
...on the future of QE2 (the monarch, not the ship), she's already said it in her remarks made live on the BBC world service on her 21st birthday, when she was still Princess Elizabeth:
... I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.
...she's there for the long haul, folks.
On "No Time to Die"', as an avid JB fan, I couldn't stand the direction of this film; walked out just before the finale: incompetent direction of a ridiculous storyline.
I suspect the Princess never would have imagined that 74 years wouldn't constitute significantly more than 'the long haul.'
I remember my first listen of Achtung Baby very vividly. My father took me to the mall so I could get the cassette, we got in the car and the distorted guitar and percussion of Zoo Station start and I thought the cassette player was broken. I had to fast forward to the next track to realize that distortion was intentional. Still love that album 30 years later!
As a British person, who’s always found the concept of monarchy absurd and anachronistic, I’m glad I’ll be living in the US when she pops her clogs as the long period of enforced national grieving, where everyone will been expected to show an undeserved degree of reverence, will be unbearable. I suspect everything I like about Britain - the music, the sense of humour - will be effectively outlawed by the BBC etc for a prolonged period of time. Here’s hoping the idea of Charles on the throne finally snaps the British people out of the idea that monarchy is a good idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Charles_III_(film)
Maybe they'll just announce it like Radio 1 did for Duke of Edinburgh's passing during a techno set.
https://youtu.be/sWt8ZIgDA9I
There will be SO. MUCH DRAMA. What will happen to the monarchy? Will any Commonwealth countries become republican? Will Charles try to use being King to try to influence policy? Does he want to do more than wear big hats and wave? And if he does what will the government do? And what happens to Andrew with Mommy not protecting him any more? And now that Harry retired or whatever, the active monarchy is just the direct line. Does that make it different?
That NL Cy Young looks like a philosophical disagreement, as others have noticed:
Wheeler 213.1 innings, 2.78 ERA, 2.59 FIP
Burnes 167 innings, 2.43 ERA, 1.63 FIP
So Burnes "deserved" a much better ERA than he had. But the batters kept on hitting the ball where the fielders weren't, either by luck or by bad fielding or something. Luck may regress to the mean next year- other things, not so much, not that we're talking about next year.
I would have gone with actual results and voted for Wheeler. But as I get older, I tend not to care. Next month I will have forgotten all this.
I'm not sure Craig's "Wheeler threw 27% more innings than Burnes but his ERA was only 12% worse" is a good way to look at it anyway. We should expect ERA to go up commensurate with innings pitched? If so, are a guy who had a 3.00 ERA in 100 innings and a guy who had a 6.00 ERA in 200 innings (which would be hard to do) equally valuable?
I don’t think he’s saying that at all. He’s acknowledging a difference while taking the position that the difference in one stat is not sufficient to overcome his advantage in innings.
Wheeler basically gave up an extra run every 27 innings. But he averaged nearly 7 innings a start (Burnes less than six) and made four more starts than Burnes. Some of that is down to the difference in bullpens, but Wheeler was asked to do a lot more than Burnes, and he delivered.
So let’s look at the marginal difference. Wheeler threw an additional 46.1 innings and gave up an additional 21 earned runs, accounting for a 4.08 ERA in those marginal innings. Those marginal innings didn’t need to be thrown by the Phillies marginal relievers. Leaguewide, NL relievers were good for a 4.19 ERA, but that number includes the relief aces, not the guys who would be coming in for those extra innings. In Wheeler’s specific case, he was sparing the marginal relievers for a team that had a bullpen ERA of 4.60, while Burnes was putting extra innings on the marginal relievers of a bullpen sporting a collective 4.02 ERA. As discussed elsewhere, ERA and IP are a somewhat rudimentary way of evaluating pitchers, but looking at the marginal innings isn’t a bad way to evaluate the tradeoff between rate dominance and bulk.
Exactly. If the marginal difference had shown Wheeler pitched those innings to 3.00 ERA, it would have been an argument in his favor. Had he pitched them to a 6.00 ERA, it would have been an argument in Burnes favor. Since he pitched them to about league average ERA, it's not a real convincing argument either way. And it's a somewhat a crude measure I admit.
My only point was comparing the percentage of additional innings to the percentage of higher ERA wasn't telling to me since it seemed to assume that as 1 increases the other should also increase proportionally, which I don't believe.
Yeah, I think it did require the marginal analysis to look deeper at the tradeoff, although I think you’re undervaluing league-average performance. It’s not a ton of difference, but those 46.1 marginal innings are a net positive for Wheeler, not neutral. Teams pay for league-average performance.
Yeah, true.
I mean, a higher workload does usually translate to a higher ERA. It's why you frequently see closers with ERAs in the mid 1's. If Josh Hader could give the Brewers 160 innings with the same ERA, don't you think they'd do it?
Yes, but not proportionally.
If the Brewers could get 130 innings and a 2.7 ERA out of Hader, they'd jump all over the opportunity.
Max Scherzer may not be as pink as you (whomst amongst us?) but based on his time here in DC I think he’s remarkably enlightened as ballplayers (and people) go. I’m confident you’d mostly buy what he’s selling.
That said, if any Scherzer ever runs for Congress it’ll be Erica, who is truly a force to be reckoned with. Plus, the sight of Max as political spouse is something I’d like to see.
Your general skepticism is justified and it’s not like I’m actually friends with the Scherzers to know for sure… but based on his time here he reads like a generic center left kind of guy.
Rodgers is the great German word: fachidiot - someone who excels in his field, but ignorant outside of it. NFL media often mistakes smart football player for smart guy. I don't think he's an idiot in the normal world, but he's not smart enough to know what he doesn't know, or that acknowledging you don't know something makes you smarter than the guy who only thinks he knows something.
It's the thinking that he, a college dropout, is smarter than doctors, immunologists, epidemiologist, and scientists around the world that makes it seem like his knowledge is at least somewhat bullshit.
You can read a lot of books and watch a lot of documentaries, but if you're watching the wrong ones - ones that just support the view in your own echo chamber - you're potentially just making yourself smarter at being dumber.
It's been said that Rodgers new pal, Joe Rogan, is what dumb people think a smart person sounds like. Rodgers might be in that category.
Apropos: https://www.theonion.com/vaccine-skeptic-does-own-research-by-enrolling-45-000-f-1847556258
Scherzer certainly seems like a good dude. At the same time, going back to The Last Jedi which was discussed on here a few days ago, the point seems to be never make assumptions about your heros.
My first stupid thought was "Who the heck is going to bet on a simulated sporting event where the results are generated by random numbers?" Until it downed on me that obviously most gambling is based on random events like card game draws, dice rolls, and roulette wheels, so it will surely work fine for them.
You left out state-run lotteries
Are you implying lotteries run by private entities (the "numbers racket" is what I'm thinking of) are fixed, not random? Could be the case. I don't know much about it.
No - just another very popular example of “gambling based on random events”
I don't think that was typically the case. When the house gets its cut either way, no need to fix the results.
I remember hearing someone talk about how, in their father's day, their friendly neighborhood organized crime syndicate would use the last X numbers of the total money bet at the racetrack the previous day, which was published in the papers at the time. That way, it's all verifiable and above-board.
That exact scenario was covered in the Sopranos prequel movie
Oh no, my niche knowledge! It's widely-known now!
Thank you. For whatever reason, I keep falling off The Sopranos. Not that it's not great and I haven't enjoyed every second I've watched; I just keep getting distracted by other shows. Haven't even gotten close to the movie yet.
Even when the house gets its cut either way, there can be incentives to fix the outcomes. Poker would seem to fall into that category, since they take a rake each hand, but the rumor always was that draws would hit more often online to keep the fish involved and pushed pots (and thus rakes) up more. I don’t believe it was ever verified, but it strikes me as a plausible incentive to rig a game that, in theory, the house should be agnostic as to the winner.
I don't really know how it works, or worked. I assumed it was similar to the current sate run daily numbers games where if you hit the right 3 or 4 digit number, you win a set payout. In which case it would have benefited the house for some number with few (or none) people betting on it rather than a number a lot of people bet on.
The race track thing seems to suggest that wasn't the case. Though I wouldn't put it beyond the mob to have someone in the newspaper print shop fudge the last few digits on the handle for them either.
Fudge it..or else!
Betting on multiple events based on set existing variable probabilities that have multiple interconnected outcomes. You're playing D&D for money. NERDS!
Hahahahaha
That sounds more fun than playing, say, roulette for money.
D&D at least has the human element. This is Keno with better textures.
How are the outcomes interconnected?
Sports scoring is not an independent event. In a baseball sim, each at bat (or pitch depending on the sim granularity) is a separate random incident but runs and winning are a cumulative measure of a series of these interconnected independent incidents. In short, baseball isn't a game of rally killing 1 run homers, regardless of what John Smoltz thinks
I see what you mean, and depending on the sophistication it could be statistically accurate. But betting on real games has the element of the unexpected, of what you think of is your own knowledge, or even cheating. Sims don't have any of that. No control and no illusion of control. I don't see how that's appealing to people. Even people who play the lottery think they have a system.
When I was in college, my roommate and I would watch the computer play itself in games of NCAA Football on the PlayStation, and we gambled on the outcome. I've gotta say, it was pretty entertaining for us!
(Alcohol may have been involved. Fine, fine - it was DEFINITELY involved.)
That's what I was thinking. Gamblers either have an emotional attachment to the bet, or (more likely) they think they have a system and can game the odds. Even with most card games, people have a system and they don't think it's random. People load dice. You're right about roulette, but even that there's the casino atmosphere.
What's the appeal in sitting on the toilet, betting on random numbers to come up?
Jeff Passan is being ironic when he calls out nerds, right?
yeah, Jeff is one of the few baseball writers with a sense of humor.
That is really weird phrasing for the announcement about the queen, as though they are trying to find a nice way of saying she's currently pupating over the winter and will emerge early next year as Mothra, Queen of the Britons or something.
Part of me is hoping that William saw what happened to Harry and Meghan, as well as his mother, and realizes he needs to end the monarchy. It won’t be an overnight thing, but a multi-decade wind down with the monarchy officially being abolished on Christmas Day, 2066 would be a fitting bookend (and we’ll pretend Cromwell didn’t happen).
There's also the matter of LILTERALLY a thousand years of history and tradition involved. That's going to be really hard to leave behind - especially when so much of the national identity is tied up in it. There are plenty of other monarchies in the world - how many can you name? In how many of them does the monarchy have a similar influence over national culture?
I think the tourist attraction aspect factors into it. The national subsidy might be offset by the tourism. There's a hell of a lot of people who visit England for the castles, changing of guards, Tower of London, etc. Sure, the castles would still be there if the monarchy was abolished, but it would be like Disney without Mickey and Cinderella.
You know that Mickey and Cinderella aren't real. Right?
Eh. France abolished the monarchy and the Palace of Versailles is still a huge tourist attraction. It's not like people go to Buckingham Palace and see the Queen personally.
I thought William was part of why Harry and Meghan quit/were fired/whatever. It seems William is all in with the monarchy and takes the whole thing very seriously. I can't imagine he'd ever end it willingly, especially since Queen Elizabeth grew up with Edward and Wallis who abdicated, and that influenced her whole life.
I think in the spring they plan to announce she is in a state of suspended animation and will remain Queen in perpetuity, thus avoiding the rise of King Charles.
Weekend at Lizzie’s?
Hal Steinbrenner addressed the media yesterday. From what I could tell in several different articles, he more or less ruled out going after a pricey shortstop since the Yankees have good prospects in the minors, and he seems to be in favor of an even lower luxury tax threshold. Once again, the question is: have the Yankees joined everyone else now and forever in putting profit ahead of victory, even if it hurts the team's chances? Or is there something we don't know about how much money the Yankees are making? Keep in mind that baseball is the main source of revenue for the Yankees, and if the pandemic dragged down the profits, the Steinbrenners might really want to cut corners for now.
Either way, I marvel at how conservative the Yankees have become. Oh, and they are still in no rush to commit to Aaron Judge, and are just assuming that him saying he wants to be a Yankee for life is a guarantee he won't bolt next year. I think that is stupid, but what do I know?
Evil Empire is pretty much done now, nothing to worry about ... [gigundo infinity-sized new-fangled spaceship slowly emerges from dark side of planet as John Williams' "Imperial March" begins to play. bum bum bum bumpa dum bumpa dum...]
Prob just the eternal optimist Yankees fan in me, but I think they will spend this year and spend BIG.
Will be fascinating to see how it unfolds. If the Yankees are done spending at stupid levels baseball will be the poorer for it.
George Steinbrenner was a weirdo. Hal appears to be a typical son of a rich guy. Leeching every bit of personality about ownership is what's happening. They all just care about being rich and powerful. Winning baseball games has nothing to do with that.
Burnes missed 2 or 3 starts because he didn't get vaccinated and got Covid in May, before the rise of Delta and the waning of vaccine immunity. Damn moron. And FIP shouldn't be used in Cy voting. That's a hill I'll risk serious injury on, if not death. Voters should vote on what pitchers actually did, not what a formula predicts they might have done. But his other rate stats were so good... maybe I still would've voted for him over Wheeler. Idk.
My Brewers have been linked to Suzuki and as someone who remembers Norichika Aoki very fondly, he had a good little run in blue and yellow, I'm all for taking a run at some talent in from the NPB. They do need a damn right handed bat, that's an understatement.
Achtung Baby made a HUGE impression on me when I first heard it, on a mixtape my cool uncle made me. Viva the Cool Uncle Mixtape! It was one of my favorite albums during my early adolescence, by any band, period. I still really like it, but these days I come back to The Joshua Tree more when it comes to U2, an album I didn't even own until I was in my 20s.
So, FIP is *what pitchers actually did*, or at least some of it. It’s normalized to the ERA scale since baseball fans understand what a good ERA is, but it’s not some form of xERA. The problem with FIP is the simplifying assumption that pitchers have *no* control over what happens outside of the three true outcomes. That’s probably closer to the truth than ERA, which gives pitchers full credit for all outcomes, unless of course the fielder gets a glove on the ball and, in the determination of the officially scorer, fails to make a play he should have (seriously, use RA/9 if you want to give pitchers full credit for run prevention). The problem with FIP is it doesn’t care if the pitcher gives up a weak grounder to third or a bullet in the gap. The problem with ERA is it treats that bullet in the gap differently if Kevin Kiermaier covers 97 feet in 2.8 seconds to snag it than if a mere mortal picks it up off the warning track.
I like to look at both BR and FG WAR to see where they deviate. BR-WAR does at least include RA/9, so if a pitcher melts down after an error it's captured. It's also helpful for pitchers with a track record to see if they generally out/underperform their FIP, and if so, why that may be. Or what may cause a fluke. Like a high strand rate, which IMO should be credited to the pitcher even if unsustainable, or a very low BABIP due to incredible team defense, which IMO should not be credited to the pitcher.
Right on. Did you see Posnanski's piece on bWAR/dWAR? He specifically uses Burnes's differential to get into what's up. Good stuff.
I'll have to check that out.
Right, and a lot of these are things that a pitcher may control but are too noisy to detect over a season-long sample. Babip is a good one, as pitchers do exert some control over it, but defensive quality and randomness will overwhelm that skill even in a 180-200 IP sample, so it takes years to see if a pitcher truly is producing weak contact, by which point he’s likely not the same pitcher anyway. I think sequencing can be like this, too. Is the pitcher losing more going to the stretch than normal, or did he just have some bad luck?
I'm not a FIP denier and I use it to predict a bounce back season when it comes to a fantasy baseball league or what have you. I just... can't wrap my head around relying too much on a stat like that for awards given to reflect things that actually happened on the field. This is thinking which I've evolved over the years of analytics' ascendance. It would be like taking every home run hit by a slugger who hit 40 home runs and, when voting on awards, saying "well 5 of those 40 wouldn't have been home runs in most ballparks, but this other guy who only hit 37 home runs, 36 of his are home runs in every park, so he's the actual home run leader". Or something like that, maybe just award silver sluggers by barrel rate or LD%. I'm not beholden to the Golden Idol that so many (used to?) view ERA as, either. It seems that every year, some new take on defensive metrics comes out, and the quants rewrite that a little bit. That's good! We should be tweaking the formula constantly (well, they should, I'm not involved, just a fan), making it better. But for now, I prefer to take FIP with a mineful of salt when using it for *descriptive* purposes. As for *predictive* purposes, it's great.
So what I would say there is that things like the HR and ERA titles are unadjusted, rote formulae - this guy hit the most home runs, that guy allowed the fewest earned runs per nine innings among qualifiers, etc. For awards, it’s appropriate to apply at least some degree of context. Ymmv on how much to apply, of course.
Most definitely. Remember how Buehrle would always outperform his peripherals? As you alluded to in the first reply, inducing weak contact can be a thing for some guys. As well as, who's wearing the glove that ought to catch the ball, when, and where.
Loved your Kiermaier/mortal analogy (the gods hate cats, now? ;)
I still don't know who I would have voted for in the NL *or* AL Cy, for what it's all worth!
One way that I do use FIP for descriptive purposes is when deciding how much credit a pitcher deserves vs. their defense. If every pitcher on a team is outperforming their FIP, and the team has a bunch of elite defenders, I'm going to credit a larger share of the run prevention to the defense. And the opposite if the pitcher has a better FIP than ERA but is surrounded by a bunch of Adam Dunns.
I think there was a Notgraphs (or something like that) essay about someone who actually created an MLB The Show team made up entirely of Adam Dunns. Shortstoo? Adam Dunn. Center field? Adam Dunn. Catcher? Yep. Can't remember if Dunn was pitching... it was great either way.
I remember that. It was something like Adam Dunns vs. Dee Gordons (or some similarly speedy non-TTO guy).
Holy shit, I got Dee Gordon right but forgot that there were 2 other teams: https://not.fangraphs.com/dangerous-experiment-a-roster-of-25-adam-dunns/
Just adding that I'm more than willing to trash ERA somewhat as well, especially considering how we now know the horrific failure of the concept of the "earned run" has played out. Bill James 101, that.
Pretty sure the KC uniform being teased has been confirmed to be an alt, not any change to their regular uni.
Football Titans’ website pulled the same Nice Try gag a few years ago, https://www.insider.com/tennessee-titans-website-new-uniforms-easter-egg-2018-3
I think Scherzer knows that Dems are on board with sustainable energy, so it’s the other guys he needs to jawbone.
Also, he and his wife have done great work with animal rescue.
Baseball uniform reveals are so boring. My take/prediction on the Royals:
They're adding a black outline to their 3rd alternate text around the numbers. Wheee!