41 thoughts on “January 16, 2017: Old Bones”

  1. I ended up hitting eBay and picking up an unlocked Samsung Galaxy S8+, which is slightly smaller than my current Galaxy Mega 6.3 but much better screen resolution and camera, among other things. It'll have to do.

    1. The wife and I each have the 8+. They're really good phones. As you mentioned, the resolution and camera are way better than anything else I've owned.

  2. I hear you, Spooky. My boys are seven years apart and the younger one (now 3) plays rougher than the older one ever did.

    We typically end our night either playing soccer or football but for some reason his version of soccer has a lot of football tackling. I can feel the difference between those seven years every night and morning, the Advil consumption in my house is way up.

  3. If anyone is free Thursday, the rugby club is having an event at Sociable Cider Works. Each pint purchased = $2 to the club. Come hangout with me and meet The Little One*

    * Offer valid until The PR picks her up after work and tasks her home

  4. All of the old guys here to Spoons: "Hold my beer. No really, hold my beer. I'm tired and sore."

          1. My wife is a physical therapist, and from the day I met he she switched me to Aleve. One a day does wonders for this 49 3/4 year old body.

        1. It does. It truly does. My life has gotten better every year.

          I'm tired a lot, too, mainly because my life is so full of things I'm doing. Sometimes it starts to feel like maybe it's too much. What I do is take a look at the things I'm doing and say, "How many of those things do I really have to do?" Usually it's not that many. So, if I don't have to do them, it means I'm choosing to do them. So, why am I choosing to do those things? Could I choose not to do some of them? The chances are that I could. There might be consequences, but there are always consequences for the choices we make.

          So if I could choose not to do some of them, do I want to? Most of the time, the answer is no. I've chosen to do the things I do for a variety of reasons--because I enjoy them, because I think they help people, because I think it's the best way to do my job, because I consider it my duty, etc., etc. If I consider those reasons to still be valid, then I usually don't want to choose to stop doing those things.

          What that does for me is change my attitude. When I stop looking at my life as being full of things I have to do, and instead look at it as full of things I choose to do, it helps me remember why I chose to do them. And I get fired up about continuing to do them. And then, I'm not as tired, because I see the benefit to what I do.

          I hope some of that may help. If you want to discuss it more, I'm certainly open to that, either here or elsewhere. You know how to get hold of me. Best wishes always.

          1. I mentioned you more for reference purposes than anything, but I should've known you'd respond with something worth reading. This really does help.

  5. Only nine seasons into his career, Andrew McCutchen has 80% of i-i’s career rWAR. He’s suffered two so-so (by his own standards) years and turned 31 in October. What looked like a Hall of Fame career in the making in going into the 2016 season has sadly drifted into probable Hall of Very Good territory. Barring signing somebody like Jarrod Dyson, it looks like the Giants might play McCutchen in center field in that big outfield, so his defensive numbers might be cringe-worthy next season. I wonder where he winds up on the rWAR list when it’s all said & done.

    1. They put Span in center last year so they're already okay with McCutchen in center. And he could be an improvement.

      1. McCutchen was moderately better than Span last season, although still well into the negatives for both UZR/150 & DRS. In fact, Span’s glove in 2017 was basically as bad as McCutchen’s in 2016. Not sure that’s something I’d be reassuring myself with if I were Brian Sabean.

        According to Fangraphs’ outfield dimensions data, the difference between center field areas in Pittsburgh & San Francisco is roughly the same as a medium-sized house (2300 sq ft bigger in SF). Shifting McCutchen to left in San Francisco would make him responsible for 6600 sq feet fewer than last season. The positional adjustment is going to mitigate some of that shift’s total value, but with a benefit to the pitching staff if they can sign a glove-first center fielder. The Giants’ lack of depth in the outfield is pretty frightening right now — McCutchen & Pence are the only outfielders projected to be above 0.1 fWAR. If they’re going to compete, the easiest way to make an appreciable difference in their non-pitching portion of the roster is to get McCutchen out of center field.

        1. I had not seen the outfield dimensions data. The equations are fantastic; too bad they're locked in images.

        2. Boy, you were not kidding about their (lack of) OF depth. Only 5 OFers on the 40-man roster, including McCutcheon (31), Pence (34), Jarrett Parker (29), Gorkys Hernandez (30) and Daniel Carbonel (26).

          Carbonel is the only one with no MLB experience to date. 192/229/280 in 420 PA at AA, and only 5 PA at AAA so far in his career (all of those in two games in 2016). No help there.

          Top prospect seems to be Chris Shaw (age-24 in 2018). He hit 289/328/530 in 360 PA with Sacramento this year and 280/344/511 overall in 1,275 career professional PA. But he has played more games at First Base than in the OF, suggesting that he's not exactly a defensive wizard.

          The other OF prospect is Austin Slater (age-25 in 2018). He hit 321/377/467 in 206 PA with Sacramento this year and has hit 308/370/443 overall in 1,280 PA in the minors (not including AFL). But they can't seem to settle on a position. He's played as many innings at 2b (905) as LF (843) with 569 in CF and 659 in RF. He appeared in 34 games with Los Gigantes this last season, hitting 282/339/402 and is listed as a Shortstop!! on the Baseball Cube's 40-man roster page for the team.

          A third prospect is Ryder Jones (age-24 in 2018). He hit 312/396/574 in 273 PA with Sacramento and 173/244/273 in 164 PA with the Giants last season, mostly playing 1b and 3b. He's listed as a 3b on the 40-man. He played 22 games in corner OF positions with Sacramento last season.

          I guess I could see Slater being tried out in CF.

          1. Belt gets some time in the outfield on occasion (mostly when Posey plays first, I imagine). But unless your first baseman is a former punter, you’re probably not going to park him out in center field.

            Slater strikes me as the best internal option, too, but it is interesting they’ve Tovar’d him all over the place.

      1. That seems unlikely. Pence has 12,232 innings in right field and 0.0 in left. Ostensibly McCutchen is the better defender, so he’d probably adjust better. He’s also five years younger than Pence.

  6. Assuming my babysitter doesn't fall through, I'll be at the Meltdown on Saturday. Probably'll end up taking off right at the scheduled end, instead of sticking around, but it looks to be a good time.

  7. I have some quibbles with his comparison to Kansas City’s success given the tear-down likely coming to the Royals, but I’m sympathetic to Jon Taylor of SI’s pillorying of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ownership. He missed an opportunity to expand the piece into a larger condemnation of MLB, although I think that’s certainly implied when he gets into revenue-sharing & payouts from the BAMtech sale.

    Given the number of teams adopting the tanking strategy, I think we’re headed for a period where tanking-to-contend simply looks like getting hosed by a system that only cares about big markets’ dominance/relevance, unprecedented post-free agency disparity between owners’ profits & players’ compensation, and chiseling every last dollar from fans. When going on half the National League is adopting or already committed to tanking, how can that strategy be remotely viable?

    1. Kind of crap that Bjelica was ejected. I thought he a great job of making sure it didn't get worse.

      1. agreed.
        I can kind of see the refs point of view as in Bjelly was in a scrape with afflalo earlier so toss him too to prevent further dust ups with another player, but yeah he was peacemaker .
        He shouldn't get fined

        1. I know that it's the wrong way to look at it because that is what Kevin lynch said at halftime.

            1. I think your opinion is the same as mine. Lynch was saying they had to eject him to prevent anything else from happening.

  8. It's a pretty good night tonight. I logged into Twitter and found out I've been at my ideal weight of 175 for a few years now.

    1. What was Teague doing on defense on that 3? Sitting in the middle of the lane for 3 straight passes.

  9. This is the first time in awhile I had to bail before the end. Teague really killed them tonight.

  10. Long, frustrating day. Trey's team gets mercy-ruled. I go from that ugly baseball game to the high school basketball games (I announce the boys basketball games). I watched the second half of the girls game, which was a loss, and then the boys also lost in a battle for first place in their league. While waiting for the second half, I see the score of the Wolves game. Not fun.

  11. Washington State QB dead from self-inflicted gun shot in apparent suicide.

    Mental Health challenges are all around us. Sometimes we don't see them until it is too late.

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