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October 6, 2016: Two Franchises Passing In The Night

99 Comments

Is it weird that the Giants and Cubs have only met each other once in the playoffs (if I'm looking that up correctly)? Only in the 1989 NL Championship Series.

99 thoughts on “October 6, 2016: Two Franchises Passing In The Night”

  2. the playoffs started in 1969. By my count, the Giants have faced nine different NL franchises in the playoffs over 11 seasons (STL 4 times, Pitt 2 times, ATL 2 times, NYM 2, FLA 2, CIN 1, PHI 1, WSN 1, Cubs 1).

    the Cubs have appeared in the NL playoffs in a total of 10 series over 7 seasons.

  3. So I watched Major League the other day. Still hilarious, still fun. But until now I didn't realize how cringe-worthingly racist Harry Doyle's lines are. He talks about featherheads and wigwammers and when an opponent hits a home run, he says, "That's off the reservation!" And then add 80,000 mentions and pictures of chief Wahoo. Just gross.

    2. You can say that about many movies in the past. Culture changes. Sometimes for the better.

      My cousin watched Sixteen Candles and was appalled that they basically encouraged date rape.

      Do you ever watch old westerns? It feels like all the love scenes involve the male forcing himself on the female until she succumbs.

      1. Yeah, good point. In Vertigo, Jimmy Stewart has a very rapey vibe and it kind of ruined things for me.

      2. Yeah, I think the general idea in the past was to "save the reputation" of the lady. If she was the aggressor or gave in to easily, then she would be viewed as not a "true lady." But, yes, this had the, hopefully, unintended effect of encouraging date rape. Fortunately, good people like George McFly figured out that this was wrong as early as the mid-50s.

  4. Home team: Don't use your closer in the top of the ninth of a tie game.
    Away team: Use your closer and don't wait for the save opportunity.

        1. With last night's heroics (even if he's healthy), does Nunez get back on the 25-man/starting lineup?

          1. 25-man? definitely. Start? Might be more of a platoon situation. Gillespie and Nunez had roughly the same OPS for the Giants. Both were better hitters than Joe Panik, so Nunez might start at second instead.

            1. I dunno. Panik had an up-and-down season, connected to some injuries. 862 OPS in August, but 492 in Sept/Oct. Nunez was 723 and 774. I can see maybe a platoon opportunity, since Panik is a lefty and Nunez a righty. Nunez had a small reverse split; Panik a pretty substantial conventional split.

              I think it more likely that Nunez platoons with Gillaspie at 3rd.

  5. I figured my wife going back to work would be a nice stress reliever, but then we got to thinking about taxes and paycheck withholdings and it isn't relieving anything.

    1. When you consider that additional income is taxed at your highest marginal rate, you definitely need to run the numbers.

        1. It shouldn't be. She's going to go with zero exemptions this year, just in case. Then week reevaluate for next year.

      2. Hold on, let me call the accountant I have on retainer and ask him to stop turning family members into LLCs long enough to see if the numbers shake out for a family with our earning potential.

        Oh, wait...

    2. I tend to agree with the Boss Emeritus' perspective on withholding: don't give the government an interest-free loan. However, I'm not the one in our family who does the taxes, so my (correct) opinion is worth bupkis.

      1. You have to be careful on that, though, I believe there are penalties applicable if you don't withhold enough.

        1. "On a future date you may owe us some money. It would be a shame if someone got hurt because you decided to pay the full amount on the day that money might be due."

          httpv://youtu.be/a6SSETwRkhk

          1. speaking from experience, unless your income is WAAAAAAY different from expected, the interest penalties from not withholding sufficiently are pretty small. Small enough that it wasn't worth it to me to try to work out my quarterly income to see whether I could avoid some of the interest charges.

            1. Or you accidentally take the wrong number of exemptions on your W-4. I may have done this and gotten a rather rude surprise at tax time. Didn't get penalized, but potentially would have if we hadn't had a change in marital status.

              I'm thinking more of the case of being super opposed to withholding and then paying a big chunk at tax time. I think if you were to pay, say, 50% of your taxes at tax time, the IRS would be displeased with you.

              1. If you want to game the system, you could change withholdings to have very little withheld in the first half of the year and make up for it in the second half. IRS assumes it is equally withheld throughout the year.

                It's a lot of work to make an extra 0.3% in savings.

                1. The only scenario I could potentially seeing that work out to your favor is if you have some high-interest debt that you are making extra payments against--you could weight those payments toward the first half of the year. But even then, it'd have to be pretty high interest to make a real difference, so basically, yeah, it's a lot of work for a small return.

        2. Yes there are. When I looked into it, I recall you had to be at least 90% of the predicted amount.

      2. I'm somewhere in between. I don't want to give them much, but forcing myself to save in that way is nice come February.

        That said, our concern right now is making sure we have enough taken out that we don't owe a load next year.

        1. My ideal would be one year to do the taxes and have it come out to $0. I would do a little happy dance.

            1. I prefer to come out owing a small amount (below the trigger for interest penalties). But I also find myself irrationally happy when I get a refund.

                1. this would imply a good reason for being happy.

                  Being happy that I'd gotten my money back from an interest-free loan to the government is irrational because I should be lamenting the interest-free loan, not the fact that a government that has never, ever, ever defaulted on a debt actually failed to return me my money. But I still fee happy.

                  1. I'm suggesting that what makes you happy makes you happy, and reason doesn't factor into it. Reason and emotion might align, but... nevermind. Not worth the discussion.

                    Also, you shouldn't be lamenting the interest free loan. Like I said below.

                    1. I'ma thinking that it is legit to be happy about making a good decision and getting a good outcome. And legit to not be happy about making a suboptimal decision and being reminded that what you did was suboptimal. Being happy about making a suboptimal decision and being reminded of that suboptimality is...irrational. 🙂

                      and, yes, I am aware of your other-regarding argument below. I'm not really on board. I'm all for paying my fair share, just not for paying more than that. That ethic conditions my willingness to scrutinize the tax code for legal dodges (I do, but not to extremes; I'm not spending serious effort on tax avoidance).

                    2. Alright, now I gotta respond...

                      You might be happy at the fact that you made a rational decision, but the rational decision itself does not directly cause happiness. Happiness-becoming is independent from our reason. For example, ice cream makes me happy, but reason has nothing to do with it. That was my whole point. That concept of "rationally happy" or "irrationally happy" is a contradiction of sorts.

        2. My big f-up happened when my divorce finalized in December and I had been withholding at a married rate all year (my salary provided most of the income and I also lost the child deduction/credit). Hurt like hell because I didn't have the money to pay the bill and then had to chop off a chunk of my paycheck to make sure it didn't happen again.

      3. 'Forbidden Zone' SelectShow
        1. 'Forbidden Zone++' SelectShow
          1. 'FZ' SelectShow

          2. There are a lot of CPAs that volunteer to provide tax advice for people who can't afford it. Most local CPA Societies do this.

            1. I understand Not All CPAs. I'm familiar with more than one CPA doing work for folks of limited means in my community. I'm also very aware that there are many CPAs hereabouts who make a ton of money servicing clients who have the means to hide multiple assets, each worth more than what my family collectively earns in a year, from taxation.

              I also spent two years providing professional guidance to hundreds of students who wanted to become CPAs with MAccs (as well as future actuaries, investment bankers, traders, etc.) follow that dream. I can separate the person from the industry. But I don't have to like the industry. (Or, for that matter, the tax code that supports it.)

  8. So I have been a little bit out of the loop on baseball this season. Twins bad = less reason to watch. On top of that, the herd is getting a little older (5, and 3) which requires a more active approach on parenting. When it comes to decide between hanging out with your kids and watching a team lose 100 + games, well, I figure you should pick the kids as long as they let you.

    With that said, I try to keep up enough on baseball that I know the major players, if not the minor ones. I follow enough baseball accounts on twitter to at least know the story lines. Imagine my surprise though when I saw Kyle Hendricks is pitching so great for the Cubs?!? I thought it was a great turn around story from a middling pitcher. And, the most surprising part, would you believe, according to his baseball reference page he is NOT former Minnesota Twins pitcher Liam Hendriks?

    Alright, maybe I was more out of the loop this year that I thought. But I DO know all of the names of each charatcher on Peppa Pig, which probably counts for something, right?

    1. Liam has made a nice career for himself as a reliever. His ERA since leaving the Twins is 3.72 and his FIP is 2.77, so yeah, releasing him was not a good move for the Twins.

                1. We trade e-mails every couple of months. Probably do for a reply to him.

                  Maybe we can get some of us old dogs together for a Wolves game log or two this season. The squad looks like they may be pretty entertaining.

    3. But I DO know all of the names of each charatcher on Peppa Pig

      Woohoo! That show is a staple at my house right now. (Can't be a coincidence that I also have a 3-year-old.)

        1. Depends on how much value you place on having a kid who says, "ready, steady, go," pronounces zebra with a British accent, and wants to jump in muddy puddles.

          further thoughts SelectShow

          1. I might have to check this out.

            My kid says "orangutan" with a British accent, thank you David Attenborough.

                1. Almost 17 weeks along now. I was gonna write something more, but this seemed like good a reveal as any, seeing as how I love animals.

            2. I picked up a few from him:
              Zeb-ra (not Zee-bra)
              Sloeth
              Har-Em (Right now I can't remember it even).

          4. My son refers to weeds as "Cheeky plants that grow in spots they are not supposed to".

  9. Joe Mauer finishes the year at an even 50.0 wins above replacement. JAWS has him ranked the 9th best catcher of all-time. After Pudge presumably gets elected there will be nobody higher than Mauer. His career at this point is almost exactly Ted Simmons (only 8 fewer seasons), who JAWS has 10th.

    1. If were me (and it will be someday, right, beau?) I'd vote him in now just based on his time at catcher.

      1. Yeah, every time I think about restarting the half-baked hall I lose my motivation. Perhaps if someone was available to do plaques I'd get a jonesing.

        2. Huh, I thought I'd sent an email a few months back, but checking on it, I guess not. The joeputer is belching out smoke again, so send them on over.

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