Verlander tops Scherzer, Urías on leave, some unwelcome injury news, a potential new baseball boss in Queens, BlueSky invites, flying the fecal skies, flamingos, the Big Bang, and the Rolling Stones
A footnote in Season Two of Cocaine and Rhinestones, perhaps? "In 1961, George Jones cracked the Top 10 again with the cover of a Hudson Strider song, '(I'm Over The) Stars For You', the lyrics of which were apparently written in response to the launch of Sputnik."
I'm just worried that the Cardinals are going to look at his success and throw him back into the rotation next year. "Hey, look! We actually have 3 starters now!"
I hope so, but I wouldn't put anything past this FO. Thompson looked really good his last outing (I've avoided watching many of the games because they're too painful, but I caught that one). Liberatore has been a bust so far. Very disappointing.
Nats win?! I won’t Nats-splain other than to note Jacob Young started the season in A ball and came all the way up five levels. With the 63rd win, the Nats won’t lose 100. Dream big, kids. Nats end up going 6–7 against the Mets – which says more about New York’s season than it does Washington’s, I think.
PS The other news out of Washington is that the Nats fired six domestic scouts, and are reported to have let go four international scouts - not long after the resignation of their director of international scouting. Lots of speculation that this means GM Mike Rizzo is either in trouble or is being forced to clean house (I think these were all his recent hires) by ownership as a condition of being re-signed in the wake of a long, unsuccessful run in drafting and player development. Inexplicably, however, the same team just extended Davey Martinez by two years. Can’t predict ball.
PPS I saw those McCutchen tweets, and I had to say I related to them as a man of a certain (advancing) age. Thinking you’ll just bounce back from something and discovering that no, your body has different ideas, is sadly familiar.
That's what I get for working from memory - I had him starting in low-A but that was last year. Still, pretty impressive that a guy made it from Fredericksburg to DC in less than a year. [It usually takes that long to drive it ;)]
I don't quite think robo umps are ready for primetime, and they've really hurt prospect evaluation for AAA (like the pre-tacked ball did for AA until they removed it). I remember some people talking about Elly De La Cruz' newfound plate discipline in AAA (13.98% BB rate). Welp, he's back down to 7.61% in the majors, right in line with his 7.73% rate in AA.
I will say that I was impressed with Jose Butto, who I did not expect to get through 3 innings let alone into the 7th. He was efficient, threw strikes, and didn't really get into trouble until pitch #80 or something. The bullpen, as usual, melted down.
The bullpen has been about what I expect from most bullpens. good some days and bad others. I think if the rotation had four guys who could routinely go six plus Diaz in the ninth, this bunch would have good enough rest to be more serviceable if not great. Not that I think anyone in the mix now is a shoo-in to be back next year.
Expecting that Butto will get a few starts now, as well as Luchessi. Would be nice if we can end the season with a better idea of which of the four potential back end starters should be in the conversation for next season. Megill and Peterson continue to baffle, though I think one or the other could end up in the pen.
I thought I heard Lucchesi had a minor injury in the last week, but I can't find that reference. For the amount the Mets have invested in this guy, I hope he can pan out.
If we're talking about 2024, I'm pretty down on both Megill and Peterson being in the rotation, especially on Peterson, who throws great stuff every 4th or 5th time out there. I don't see either of them on the Mets next year, at least to start the season. One start from Butto doesn't pencil him into the rotation, but I really liked what I saw yesterday.
I believe the Mets will sign 2 free agent starters (Yamamoto being one) to go along with Senga and Quintana and whatever can be dug up for the 5th spot as a bridge to Vasil and the other kids coming up from the minors.
That sounds about right. It's kind of a flat free agent class if you aren't looking to spend on Snell or Nola, though Montgomery seems like a possibility. But I am sure that after Senga, the Mets are in on Japanese pitchers.
Far be it from me to yuck someone's yum, but he was facing a Nats lineup that is charitably described as "punchless." Of course, Joan Adon only surrendered 2 runs so it's not like it was a hitting clinic on either side.
I wake up. I read you and I read Heather Cox Richardson.
Don't worry about the universe. We have colleagues who do overdo it sometimes when faced with surprises. Always thrilled to see that someone is prepared to discuss physics at cocktail parties, where when I answer the question about my profession, ...I can become very lonely. I'm over it.
I am a cosmology buff so I have a layman's interest. Does it really matter to the world if string theory is right? Probably not. Is it something I have studied enough to find absurd? Yeah.
But I suppose I hate it the same way I hate the Yankees. Not a real hate, just sort of an anti-rooting interest.
"hypothesizing the existence of a thing to explain gaps in knowledge despite no evidence that the thing exists and repeated failures to actually find evidence of the made up thing."
Not what the profession does at all. First, theories are popular in media, not in the profession. There's much more than popularity. Second, we really don't "guess." We have a very good understanding of what happened within the first picosecond after the big bang. And it's far from simplistic. It's very complex.
That's why articles like that NYT piece bother me. They leave an incorrect impression of how physics works and what we value and what we judge to be trustworthy, or tenuous.
It's really subtle. We all have our internally unpopular, popular scientist-authors. EVERYTHING IN CAPS popularizers. Using up a whole week's allocation of ! marks in one article. Michio Kaku is the one most of us dread.
Greene is very smart and a gifted communicator IMO. His Nova series was brilliant. He’s very subtle and my only criticism of him is that he’s so persuasive that one might have a hard time distinguishing what’s speculation and what’s confirmed.
I like Tyson a lot. Another brilliant communicator. Tyson’s background is as an experimenter and Greene’s is as a theorist and that probably informs their enthusiasms for speculative topics.
Funny, those are the two newsletters waiting for me which I read when I wake up (or more accurately, when I begin the "fart around online" portion of my ((late)) morning).
Sitting here watching the 10-minute MLB round up… Looks like journeyman Mike Ford is having a nice season in Seattle; he will probably get a glowing mention in an upcoming issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly - in between the guy who just got promoted to vice president at JP Morgan Chase, and the woman who just discovered a new species of butterfly somewhere in Africa.
A canny move, indeed. I think they could have workshopped the title, though. Something like "(I'm Not Even) Angry (, I'm Actually Laughing)", or "U Mad, Bro?".
My thought on the video was that it looks like somebody made a joke about Tawny Kitain on the hood of Whitesnake's car, but nobody else realized it was a joke and they rolled with it. Agree with you sentiment on the song - sounds like the b-side from a older hit single.
I wonder how many people reading this are wondering what a b-side is?
The day I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit on the classic rock station was the same day I decided I should just walk into the ocean as the world had passed me by.
Then like a good late Gen-xer I thought, oh well, whatever, nevermind.
Has anyone else seen that video of Dave Grohl talking to Pharrell were he admits he stole the drum flams at the beginning of Smells Like Teen Spirit from the Gap Band?! Mind blown.
Craigster: if you ackcherly intend to take the train from London to Manchester you really really need to read "Cloud Atlas" first. You will surely have a sense of been there, endured that at first, but by the time you get to Manchester you'll be feeling more like it is more like it is now than it has ever been.
As far as flying the fecal skies, it would not have been Delta I would've thought would turn into a winged Taco Bell. It would have been United, the Airline with the Pole Up its Ass (tm). Then again, I suppose having a passenger shitting all over your airplane would have been a nice change of pace from being reviled because your security service got videoed beating up another elderly passenger.
I don't remember Prell having any ad campaigns of note, but I thought perhaps you might've been thinking of Pert, and their "Bouncing and behaving hair" ads, which aren't referenced in the clip above but feel like something Mike Myers would've used somewhere in those movies.
Spencer Strider is in the Cy Young conversation in that he strikes out an amazing number of batters (are they “hitters” if they don’t hit the ball?) and thus has an impressive fWAR. But his ERA has been above 3.5 and is now pushing 4. He may get some votes, but he’s not going to win or even finish top 3. (Steele, Snell, Gallen)
The Stones single sounds like a Steel Wheels outtake. The basic sound is classic and nice, but even at a bit less than 4 minutes, it could be trimmed down. It sure sounds to me like something was done in terms of the production of Mick's vocals -- maybe Autotune, or something along those lines. He sounds fine, but there's something artificial there (to my ears).
There may be something to the solo artists aging better, in terms of what they put out. One of my favorite bands is Cheap Trick (who aren't that much younger than the Stones), and their last few albums have sounded good, but the songwriting, for the most part, is perfunctory.
Then again, my all-time favorite band, Sparks, lead by 74 y.o. Russell Mael and songwriting brother Ron (age 78), put out a great album earlier this year. Here's a track:
I'm not sure if I like "Angry" more or less than their COVID song "Living in a Ghost Town", but I think both will end up on Deep Tracks when all is said and done.
I could swear on only one listen I heard a smidge of auto-tune on Mick's voice during the chorus. Gotta stay hip for those crazy kids (circa 2004). Not great, not terrible. Keef plays one of his Keef riffs. All good. Video not as good as this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faRDvZAeVJg
Hudson Strider sounds like a motorcycle from the 20s. But it's actually that guy who walks the length of the Hudson River every summer.
Sounds like it would be the name of a guy who opened for Johnny Cash at a show in rural Louisiana and then was never heard from again.
A footnote in Season Two of Cocaine and Rhinestones, perhaps? "In 1961, George Jones cracked the Top 10 again with the cover of a Hudson Strider song, '(I'm Over The) Stars For You', the lyrics of which were apparently written in response to the launch of Sputnik."
I'm just worried that the Cardinals are going to look at his success and throw him back into the rotation next year. "Hey, look! We actually have 3 starters now!"
I hope so, but I wouldn't put anything past this FO. Thompson looked really good his last outing (I've avoided watching many of the games because they're too painful, but I caught that one). Liberatore has been a bust so far. Very disappointing.
More concerned about Craig thinking there are lions and cheetahs and stuff roaming the Yucatán.
Welp. It appears I'm too late already for the Bluesky invites.
Try this - bsky-social-msstt-xsm6r
Hey, thanks! Just for that: Go, Nats!
Welcome to the bandwagon. Can you pitch?
Meant to thank you for the one I took when you put them up a few weeks ago. But I’m an unthoughtful SOB and ket it slide.
And I'm a careless MFer who never follows through so I didn't go back and check to see how many I had left. We're all a little bit broken here ;)
I got one of those too, I think. Thanks!
Hi, Coach Jim!
World's colliding. Might be time to go underground.
We can just pretend not to know each other
That was fast
bsky-social-qbbzl-vdqhs
Thank you!
No problem - need more sporty people to follow!
I can’t promise I’ll be checking all day but if I can, I’ll pop another one in the comments.
I have given away all three of mine – but I was shocked I had three in the first place so stay tuned.
Oh, hi! :)
bsky-social-mzlkd-3vkle
Here's another one bsky-social-eicsq-r2hly
Sweet! Thanks!
I whiffed as well, but three and a half hours later lol
I've got an invite if someone wants it bsky-social-b7ydb-z3qxo
Nats win?! I won’t Nats-splain other than to note Jacob Young started the season in A ball and came all the way up five levels. With the 63rd win, the Nats won’t lose 100. Dream big, kids. Nats end up going 6–7 against the Mets – which says more about New York’s season than it does Washington’s, I think.
PS The other news out of Washington is that the Nats fired six domestic scouts, and are reported to have let go four international scouts - not long after the resignation of their director of international scouting. Lots of speculation that this means GM Mike Rizzo is either in trouble or is being forced to clean house (I think these were all his recent hires) by ownership as a condition of being re-signed in the wake of a long, unsuccessful run in drafting and player development. Inexplicably, however, the same team just extended Davey Martinez by two years. Can’t predict ball.
PPS I saw those McCutchen tweets, and I had to say I related to them as a man of a certain (advancing) age. Thinking you’ll just bounce back from something and discovering that no, your body has different ideas, is sadly familiar.
Only 4 levels for Young, but point still taken
That's what I get for working from memory - I had him starting in low-A but that was last year. Still, pretty impressive that a guy made it from Fredericksburg to DC in less than a year. [It usually takes that long to drive it ;)]
too late
Try this one
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Looks like you got one already. Someone else can grab this one
I grabbed it. Hope that's ok. Thank you! Finally caught the plane out of Casablanca...
Ha!
A few more invites for the taking:
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I’m in! Thanks Joe!
And more:
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Thanks!!
Ugh, hit the wrong button and lost my post. And need to do my morning walk. So just sharing this news of a tweak to the robo-umps at Triple A.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/38301651/triple-robot-strike-zone-get-bigger-starting-tuesday
I don't quite think robo umps are ready for primetime, and they've really hurt prospect evaluation for AAA (like the pre-tacked ball did for AA until they removed it). I remember some people talking about Elly De La Cruz' newfound plate discipline in AAA (13.98% BB rate). Welp, he's back down to 7.61% in the majors, right in line with his 7.73% rate in AA.
I will say that I was impressed with Jose Butto, who I did not expect to get through 3 innings let alone into the 7th. He was efficient, threw strikes, and didn't really get into trouble until pitch #80 or something. The bullpen, as usual, melted down.
The bullpen has been about what I expect from most bullpens. good some days and bad others. I think if the rotation had four guys who could routinely go six plus Diaz in the ninth, this bunch would have good enough rest to be more serviceable if not great. Not that I think anyone in the mix now is a shoo-in to be back next year.
Expecting that Butto will get a few starts now, as well as Luchessi. Would be nice if we can end the season with a better idea of which of the four potential back end starters should be in the conversation for next season. Megill and Peterson continue to baffle, though I think one or the other could end up in the pen.
I thought I heard Lucchesi had a minor injury in the last week, but I can't find that reference. For the amount the Mets have invested in this guy, I hope he can pan out.
If we're talking about 2024, I'm pretty down on both Megill and Peterson being in the rotation, especially on Peterson, who throws great stuff every 4th or 5th time out there. I don't see either of them on the Mets next year, at least to start the season. One start from Butto doesn't pencil him into the rotation, but I really liked what I saw yesterday.
I believe the Mets will sign 2 free agent starters (Yamamoto being one) to go along with Senga and Quintana and whatever can be dug up for the 5th spot as a bridge to Vasil and the other kids coming up from the minors.
That sounds about right. It's kind of a flat free agent class if you aren't looking to spend on Snell or Nola, though Montgomery seems like a possibility. But I am sure that after Senga, the Mets are in on Japanese pitchers.
Far be it from me to yuck someone's yum, but he was facing a Nats lineup that is charitably described as "punchless." Of course, Joan Adon only surrendered 2 runs so it's not like it was a hitting clinic on either side.
If you didn't get one of the other bluesky invites, maybe one of these will work for you:
bsky-social-pj47g-ujdkw
bsky-social-fa62z-vy76m
Thanks!
Happy to do it.
I wake up. I read you and I read Heather Cox Richardson.
Don't worry about the universe. We have colleagues who do overdo it sometimes when faced with surprises. Always thrilled to see that someone is prepared to discuss physics at cocktail parties, where when I answer the question about my profession, ...I can become very lonely. I'm over it.
Really.
I hate string theory.
I am a cosmology buff so I have a layman's interest. Does it really matter to the world if string theory is right? Probably not. Is it something I have studied enough to find absurd? Yeah.
But I suppose I hate it the same way I hate the Yankees. Not a real hate, just sort of an anti-rooting interest.
This reminds me of this episode of The Big Bang Theory ...
Leslie Winkle : Loop quantum gravity is the future of physics.
Leonard Hofstadter : Sorry, Leslie, I guess I prefer my space stringy, not loopy.
Leslie Winkle : I'm glad I found out the truth about you before this went any further.
Leonard Hofstadter : Truth? What truth? We're talking about untested hypotheses. It's no big deal.
Leslie Winkle : It isn't? Really? Tell me, how will we raise the children?
Leonard Hofstadter : I guess we wait until they're old enough and let them choose their own theory.
Leslie Winkle : We can't let them choose. They're children!
"hypothesizing the existence of a thing to explain gaps in knowledge despite no evidence that the thing exists and repeated failures to actually find evidence of the made up thing."
Ironically, you just described religion.
Not what the profession does at all. First, theories are popular in media, not in the profession. There's much more than popularity. Second, we really don't "guess." We have a very good understanding of what happened within the first picosecond after the big bang. And it's far from simplistic. It's very complex.
That's why articles like that NYT piece bother me. They leave an incorrect impression of how physics works and what we value and what we judge to be trustworthy, or tenuous.
It's really subtle. We all have our internally unpopular, popular scientist-authors. EVERYTHING IN CAPS popularizers. Using up a whole week's allocation of ! marks in one article. Michio Kaku is the one most of us dread.
How do you feel about Brian Greene or Neil DeGrasse Tyson?
Greene is very smart and a gifted communicator IMO. His Nova series was brilliant. He’s very subtle and my only criticism of him is that he’s so persuasive that one might have a hard time distinguishing what’s speculation and what’s confirmed.
I like Tyson a lot. Another brilliant communicator. Tyson’s background is as an experimenter and Greene’s is as a theorist and that probably informs their enthusiasms for speculative topics.
Funny, those are the two newsletters waiting for me which I read when I wake up (or more accurately, when I begin the "fart around online" portion of my ((late)) morning).
Sitting here watching the 10-minute MLB round up… Looks like journeyman Mike Ford is having a nice season in Seattle; he will probably get a glowing mention in an upcoming issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly - in between the guy who just got promoted to vice president at JP Morgan Chase, and the woman who just discovered a new species of butterfly somewhere in Africa.
The woman in the Stones video is actress Sydney Sweeney.
My 25-year-old son talks about her a lot… Bold move by the Stones to pull in another generation of fans.
A canny move, indeed. I think they could have workshopped the title, though. Something like "(I'm Not Even) Angry (, I'm Actually Laughing)", or "U Mad, Bro?".
Ah, I know who she is but not well enough that it clicked that it was her.
My thought on the video was that it looks like somebody made a joke about Tawny Kitain on the hood of Whitesnake's car, but nobody else realized it was a joke and they rolled with it. Agree with you sentiment on the song - sounds like the b-side from a older hit single.
I wonder how many people reading this are wondering what a b-side is?
Sounds like you're still preoccupied with 1985.
I do wonder about when Motley Crue became classic rock.
The day I heard Smells Like Teen Spirit on the classic rock station was the same day I decided I should just walk into the ocean as the world had passed me by.
Then like a good late Gen-xer I thought, oh well, whatever, nevermind.
The Melvins played in Minneapolis last night. I wasn't there, but the point is, THEY were.
Has anyone else seen that video of Dave Grohl talking to Pharrell were he admits he stole the drum flams at the beginning of Smells Like Teen Spirit from the Gap Band?! Mind blown.
At least it wasn't one of their granddaughters
I feel like Oprah!
bsky-social-xvmog-zgunb
bsky-social-o25fi-74hjj
bsky-social-6kwfr-ecrxr
bsky-social-ipbco-rb7dk
And I'm NCDee on there, if you care.
Following you now. I’m shoesforall
Following.
Thank you!
Thanks! Thought I was too late! I'm MrKentL (@mrkentl.bsky.social) on there.
Following.
I'm, um, DMCj. #OneNoteDougie
@dmcj.bsky.social
Thank you.
Craigster: if you ackcherly intend to take the train from London to Manchester you really really need to read "Cloud Atlas" first. You will surely have a sense of been there, endured that at first, but by the time you get to Manchester you'll be feeling more like it is more like it is now than it has ever been.
As far as flying the fecal skies, it would not have been Delta I would've thought would turn into a winged Taco Bell. It would have been United, the Airline with the Pole Up its Ass (tm). Then again, I suppose having a passenger shitting all over your airplane would have been a nice change of pace from being reviled because your security service got videoed beating up another elderly passenger.
Please ppl, I am imploring you to post your @‘s. I need to know who to follow!!! Thank you!
@aliceq.bsky.social
Followed (shoesforall)
ohkiv
Done
@seejayone.bsky.social
Done
djmccann.bsky.social, but as I said in my main comment, um...don't?
Don’t what?
Stop believin'
This also works, t
Follow me.
Yeah, didn’t see your comment when you posted your reply.
same handle, @4d3fect@bsky.social
@lukermartin.bsky.social
@sansho1.bsky.social , please I'm begging for engagement!
It’s so hard to find people on a new platform! Followed you
@really.want.an.invite.code :)
If I get one, remind me of this conversation. But I think some people are holding back invite codes for the west coast
Thanks -- I got in toward the bottom of today's forum!
Awesome
bsky-social-eygg5-joqzg
Thanks -- I'm good now so this one is up for grabs!
Thanks! Love the camaraderie in this thread, I'll pay it forward when/if I get one
Did you get the one I posted above?
Yep, it just worked for me
Great!
@fergieprs.bsky.social
@sarahgrynpas.bsky.social
The entire CoC comment section today is the living embodiment of this clip:
https://youtu.be/JA7CKvoKEmE
Ok, but name the shampoo brand that had the commercial that Wayne's World ripped off here.
Not even going to click and I know it's Prell.
My google-fu tells me you're wrong.
Your google-fu is correct. I had the right product but wrong brand. Now I'm wondering why I thought Prell.
I don't remember Prell having any ad campaigns of note, but I thought perhaps you might've been thinking of Pert, and their "Bouncing and behaving hair" ads, which aren't referenced in the clip above but feel like something Mike Myers would've used somewhere in those movies.
I did find an old Christie Brinkley Prell ad, which made my inner teenager very happy.
Spencer Strider is in the Cy Young conversation in that he strikes out an amazing number of batters (are they “hitters” if they don’t hit the ball?) and thus has an impressive fWAR. But his ERA has been above 3.5 and is now pushing 4. He may get some votes, but he’s not going to win or even finish top 3. (Steele, Snell, Gallen)
Strider's been just inconsistent enough that he could even slip behind Senga if Mr. Ghost Fork has a great finish to the season.
The Stones single sounds like a Steel Wheels outtake. The basic sound is classic and nice, but even at a bit less than 4 minutes, it could be trimmed down. It sure sounds to me like something was done in terms of the production of Mick's vocals -- maybe Autotune, or something along those lines. He sounds fine, but there's something artificial there (to my ears).
There may be something to the solo artists aging better, in terms of what they put out. One of my favorite bands is Cheap Trick (who aren't that much younger than the Stones), and their last few albums have sounded good, but the songwriting, for the most part, is perfunctory.
Then again, my all-time favorite band, Sparks, lead by 74 y.o. Russell Mael and songwriting brother Ron (age 78), put out a great album earlier this year. Here's a track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMmoTU7lPKE&list=RDnMmoTU7lPKE&start_radio=1
I'm not sure if I like "Angry" more or less than their COVID song "Living in a Ghost Town", but I think both will end up on Deep Tracks when all is said and done.
You're not the only one who noticed the autotune. Which I personally hate.
*old man yells at could dot jpeg*
I could swear on only one listen I heard a smidge of auto-tune on Mick's voice during the chorus. Gotta stay hip for those crazy kids (circa 2004). Not great, not terrible. Keef plays one of his Keef riffs. All good. Video not as good as this classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faRDvZAeVJg
oh yeah, since we are doing this - @adamopp.bsky.social
"There’s probably a lot of material to work with there but I feel like it’d get pretty dark so I won’t do it."
This is 100% the Cardinals' philosophy on developing pitchers.