— Red Banana Bookshop (@RedBalloonBooks) April 1, 2019
(And speaking of books, there's a fresh, new book post up!)
Took today off to bring the cat on to get neutered and get an oil change. I got some time before I'll need to pick him up so I think I'm gonna head over to see Captain Marvel.
Jane's been into it too, so we've been flying through the MCU movies. We might catch up before that one's out of the theaters.
Protip as you go through them: Ragnarok and Infinity War make a great double feature.
Just as long as you didn’t get the car neutered & the cat’s oil changed...
Cat's got a few more miles before he's due, so I think I got each to the right place.
A crappy theater on a Monday afternoon has a very odd feeling. Also, I haven't been to this one in years and it appears that they are just starting to install recliners, but I couldn't get them to recline.
It was good, I quite enjoyed it. I'd put it solidly in the top half of the MCU. Brie Larson and Sam Jackson were very entertaining. I look forward to her interactions with Chris Hemsworth in end game.
Also, I think bS wondered if the same actor played Ronan, and surprisingly yes, it was the same guy. It really didn't sound or feel like it.
Yea, the look and performance were so different, I didn't recognize him.
Apparently it takes James Gunn to extract the full cheese from the guy.
guys, he's not "the actor" or "the guy", he's Lee F'in Pace. Lincoln, anyone? He's been around a bit.
I've not seen Lincoln, but I mean no disrespect to Mr. Pace. I loved him in GotG. The earnest campiness fit the movie perfectly.
Yup, that's him.
well done.
It's really stupid that this isn't real.
BREAKING: The US Open to add puppies to the ballperson team at the 2019 tournament for the first time.
Jonah Keri of The Athletic has his first power rankings out of the season. He has the Twins 11th and the Indians 17th.
Cleveland looks really lost, but once those injuries clear up we’ll see who they really are.
The resident Cleveland fan in my office greeted me with, "I see your Twins beat up on my Indians over the weekend". He then complained about how the Indians actively did nothing to improve their team in the offseason despite having one of the best starting staffs in baseball. I told him I agreed with every single one of his points except that I wasn't complaining.
Watching the series this weekend, I kept wondering why Cleveland gave Hanley Ramirez a gig and Evan Gattis is still a free agent. I know Gattis probably isn’t their first choice for starting catcher, but with Yan Gomes gone, a DH who could rotate behind the plate occasionally to keep Santana off the field seems like a good fit.
Indians bullpen gave up 3 runs in the 8th to blow a 1-0 lead after Clevinger pitched 7 shutout innings with 1 it allowed and 12 Ks against the White Sox. Francona used 3 relievers in the 8th to no avail.
Fortunately for them they are playing the white Sox.
ESPN with a quadruple header of baseball today. yay
And I'm not blacked out of the white Sox one, which is surprising.
Baseball-Reference on Facebook:
It looks like smallball is on the way out in Minnesota. The #Twins had 17 chances to steal 2nd, 11 chances to steal third, and 16 chances to sacrifice bunt and passed on all of them
Per rhu's letter above, if one reason they don't have many steal attempts this year is because Buxton hits a crap load of doubles, I will be a happy camper.
And only got one more for the year.
The White Sox bullpen might not be the best. Same with Cleveland.
Oh boy. ESPN crew just went way off the rails by using the words "Markakis" and "hall of fame" in the same sentence.
The 1-time All-Star with a 110 career OPS+ as a corner outfielder? Uh, no. Not even close.
They were talking about how he had an outside shot for 3k hits. Then he got a hit and they were like that's #2200 something and I was like, ohhhhhh.
It was a really bad conversation.
Johnny Damon, the former Idiot & Yankmee who retired with 2769 hits, 235 HR, 408 SB, a 104 OPS+, & 56.4 rWAR, received 1.9% of the BBWAA’s votes in his debut on the 2018 ballot. This is but a recent example.
A partial list of corner IF/OF/DH-types with 2500+ hits who have to pay for admission to Cooperstown:
Garret Anderson, Buddy Bell, Bill Buckner, Willie Davis, Steve Finley, Julio Franco, Steve Garvey, Al Oliver, Dave Parker, Vada Pinson, & Rusty Stab.
What clowns were on that broadcast team?
The only guy I recognized was Tim Kurkjian, and his dismissal of Markakis's HOF chances was that he only made one all-star team. Fortunately, the game would shortly become 7-0 and a curling match was getting started, so I bailed.
56.4 rWAR is nothing to sneer at, however (143rd all-time for position players).
Markakis, in contrast, is at 32.2 rWAR in his age-35 season. In his last 4 seasons, he accumulated only 6.6 rWAR. Damon gathered 10 rWAR from age-35 to retirement (age-38).
I find it mildly amusing that Markakis has won 3 Fielding Grammies. In each of those seasons, he had negative dWAR.
I wonder what player has the highest number of Fielding Grammies awarded without a positive dWAR? I’ll start the bidding with Cap’n Dreamboat, who was awarded 5 Grammies, but in only one of those years attained a positive dWAR (another year was exactly 0.0).
dWAR includes position adjustment. As a corner outfielder, he has to be well above average in fielding to achieve a positive dWAR. See his 2017 season where he was +10 fielding and finished with a 0.3 dWAR. FanGraphs does the same thing but doesn't double count the adjustment in oWAR too.
Edit: And if you're a shortstop, you need a leaden glove to counteract the +7.5 position bonus.
Hmm. Important clarification. I didn't know that.
also, "Rusty Stab" is an excellent, Freudian typo.
I can’t take the credit for that hilarious autocorrection.
David Hess of the O's had a no-hitter through 6 1/3 innings but was pulled with 82 pitches thrown because he was pitching on short rest. The reliever that followed him promptly gave up a walk and a home run. Fortunately, the O's had a 6-run lead before the home run.
I was horrified by this for a minute this morning.
(And speaking of books, there's a fresh, new book post up!)
Took today off to bring the cat on to get neutered and get an oil change. I got some time before I'll need to pick him up so I think I'm gonna head over to see Captain Marvel.
Jane's been into it too, so we've been flying through the MCU movies. We might catch up before that one's out of the theaters.
Protip as you go through them: Ragnarok and Infinity War make a great double feature.
Just as long as you didn’t get the car neutered & the cat’s oil changed...
Cat's got a few more miles before he's due, so I think I got each to the right place.
A crappy theater on a Monday afternoon has a very odd feeling. Also, I haven't been to this one in years and it appears that they are just starting to install recliners, but I couldn't get them to recline.
It was good, I quite enjoyed it. I'd put it solidly in the top half of the MCU. Brie Larson and Sam Jackson were very entertaining. I look forward to her interactions with Chris Hemsworth in end game.
Also, I think bS wondered if the same actor played Ronan, and surprisingly yes, it was the same guy. It really didn't sound or feel like it.
Yea, the look and performance were so different, I didn't recognize him.
Apparently it takes James Gunn to extract the full cheese from the guy.
guys, he's not "the actor" or "the guy", he's Lee F'in Pace. Lincoln, anyone? He's been around a bit.
I've not seen Lincoln, but I mean no disrespect to Mr. Pace. I loved him in GotG. The earnest campiness fit the movie perfectly.
Yup, that's him.
well done.
It's really stupid that this isn't real.
Not as good as "Silverback Gorilla".
But then, what is?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Jonah Keri of The Athletic has his first power rankings out of the season. He has the Twins 11th and the Indians 17th.
Cleveland looks really lost, but once those injuries clear up we’ll see who they really are.
The resident Cleveland fan in my office greeted me with, "I see your Twins beat up on my Indians over the weekend". He then complained about how the Indians actively did nothing to improve their team in the offseason despite having one of the best starting staffs in baseball. I told him I agreed with every single one of his points except that I wasn't complaining.
Watching the series this weekend, I kept wondering why Cleveland gave Hanley Ramirez a gig and Evan Gattis is still a free agent. I know Gattis probably isn’t their first choice for starting catcher, but with Yan Gomes gone, a DH who could rotate behind the plate occasionally to keep Santana off the field seems like a good fit.
Indians bullpen gave up 3 runs in the 8th to blow a 1-0 lead after Clevinger pitched 7 shutout innings with 1 it allowed and 12 Ks against the White Sox. Francona used 3 relievers in the 8th to no avail.
Fortunately for them they are playing the white Sox.
Look at who's leading MLB in FIP & K/9.
I'm skeptical...April Fools and all that
Small sample size theater.
ESPN with a quadruple header of baseball today. yay
And I'm not blacked out of the white Sox one, which is surprising.
Baseball-Reference on Facebook:
Buxton got his third double last year on May 12
Per rhu's letter above, if one reason they don't have many steal attempts this year is because Buxton hits a crap load of doubles, I will be a happy camper.
And only got one more for the year.
The White Sox bullpen might not be the best. Same with Cleveland.
Oh boy. ESPN crew just went way off the rails by using the words "Markakis" and "hall of fame" in the same sentence.
The 1-time All-Star with a 110 career OPS+ as a corner outfielder? Uh, no. Not even close.
They were talking about how he had an outside shot for 3k hits. Then he got a hit and they were like that's #2200 something and I was like, ohhhhhh.
It was a really bad conversation.
Johnny Damon, the former Idiot & Yankmee who retired with 2769 hits, 235 HR, 408 SB, a 104 OPS+, & 56.4 rWAR, received 1.9% of the BBWAA’s votes in his debut on the 2018 ballot. This is but a recent example.
A partial list of corner IF/OF/DH-types with 2500+ hits who have to pay for admission to Cooperstown:
Garret Anderson, Buddy Bell, Bill Buckner, Willie Davis, Steve Finley, Julio Franco, Steve Garvey, Al Oliver, Dave Parker, Vada Pinson, & Rusty Stab.
What clowns were on that broadcast team?
The only guy I recognized was Tim Kurkjian, and his dismissal of Markakis's HOF chances was that he only made one all-star team. Fortunately, the game would shortly become 7-0 and a curling match was getting started, so I bailed.
56.4 rWAR is nothing to sneer at, however (143rd all-time for position players).
Markakis, in contrast, is at 32.2 rWAR in his age-35 season. In his last 4 seasons, he accumulated only 6.6 rWAR. Damon gathered 10 rWAR from age-35 to retirement (age-38).
I find it mildly amusing that Markakis has won 3 Fielding Grammies. In each of those seasons, he had negative dWAR.
I wonder what player has the highest number of Fielding Grammies awarded without a positive dWAR? I’ll start the bidding with Cap’n Dreamboat, who was awarded 5 Grammies, but in only one of those years attained a positive dWAR (another year was exactly 0.0).
dWAR includes position adjustment. As a corner outfielder, he has to be well above average in fielding to achieve a positive dWAR. See his 2017 season where he was +10 fielding and finished with a 0.3 dWAR. FanGraphs does the same thing but doesn't double count the adjustment in oWAR too.
Edit: And if you're a shortstop, you need a leaden glove to counteract the +7.5 position bonus.
Hmm. Important clarification. I didn't know that.
also, "Rusty Stab" is an excellent, Freudian typo.
I can’t take the credit for that hilarious autocorrection.
David Hess of the O's had a no-hitter through 6 1/3 innings but was pulled with 82 pitches thrown because he was pitching on short rest. The reliever that followed him promptly gave up a walk and a home run. Fortunately, the O's had a 6-run lead before the home run.