I mentioned before that I was surprised that Morneau is kind of out of nowhere receiving the lion's share of TV games, especially compared to all the guys they were trying out last year. Frankly, I'm fine with it so long as none of those other guys come back (Hawkins strongly excepted). Last night though, I started to wonder just how steamed a certain ex-clubhouse boxing enthusiast must be about this arrangement right now...
Inflationary rational expectations.
Attending my first game of the season tonight. Good Kyle Gibson, please?
Yes, please. We haven't had much in the way of losing streaks this season, and I would like to keep it that way
Question for AMR:
Does it count as a lifer the bird is dead? Common Yellowthroat. Not a super exciting find, but I know I've not seen one before so...
Also, you had an e-mail re: Northern Mockingbird. Any thoughts on that?
Did you kill it? Then yes.
But did you eat it? Then no.
Did you force someone else to eat it? Because then it's judge's decision.
Window? 🙁
Yes, but not my own.
Had that happen to one once, right over my head. I think he shook it off, but it was touch-and-go for a bit.
B-R has added playoff odds, fwiw. They're based on the last 100 games, so 2018 has a lot of influence right now. Our 2019 SRS of 0.9 is good for fifth highest in MLB, but a -0.1 is being used in the predictions
Using the last 100 games is an unusual choice. I like that FanGraphs has multiple options, but all based on current season data or projections.
I agree. I had to look for the reasoning why Twins had better odds than Indians yet Indians were listed in the most probable post season teams.
We apparently have a food stealer in the office, and it's not that big of an office. I was today's victim, apparently.
If it’s not that big of an office, shouldn’t you be able to see the lunch burglar at work?
(Seriously, though, that sucks. And if the thief is stealing food because they’re not able to buy enough to feed themselves, that sucks, too.)
A few points:
-It wasn't exactly my lunch lunch. Someone gave me half their torta from the previous day as it was bigger than her head, so I wrapped it and put it in the fridge for the next day.
-Our office is big enough that you could easily find a quiet place to enjoy such a torta, though not big enough that there's people you wouldn't know in the office.
-If it was need based, of course I'd say, please, have at it. However, I don't think that would be the case around here (of course, who knows what people could be going through in their daily lives).
-Finally, this has happened a couple times recently. A missing piece of pizza here, someone's leftovers there, etc. No one is freaking out and breaking out the hidden cameras or anything, it's just been kind of a headscratcher for the reasons I mention above.
It sounds like some spycraft is in order! 😉
Or calling you-know-who.
They never identified the food stealer on Homicide, and it's been bothering me ever since.
Wolves gonna wolf. No love in the draft lottery.
It's almost worth hoping it will happen every year just to see how many years it can happen.
I love the new odds, but really, having a lottery is kind of stupid. They could just give the non-playoff teams extra cap space and either do free agency or some kind of auction.
well, they can't do an auction and maintain the rookie salary scale. The union won't go for a revamping of the salary scale if it does not include non-rookie contracts as well. And I don't see a wholesale restructuring of the CBA in order to try to "fix" the draft.
the point of the lottery was to reduce the incentives for bad teams to tank in order to improve their draft positions. The lottery, unfortunately, spread those incentives to more bad teams rather than weakening those incentives. I don't know how you eliminate those incentives and still have a draft. Any time there are just one or two (perceived) franchise-type players in a draft, teams are going to jockey for draft position.
Too bad American sports aren't set up to have relegation. That definitely deters tanking and makes even late season games between two also-rans as high drama stuff.
Relegation is a terrible solution for parity, though. All of the bad teams have hugely uncertain future revenues due to the risk of relegation, can’t invest like the top teams, and you wind up with a league where the same 2-6 teams are competing for the league title every year.
I'm curious if any league will go for eliminating the draft. I think all of the big four leagues have hard slotting now so drafting only covers ordering. The bottom teams would need to not have different amounts for slotting however.
If basketball in Europe continues to grow, I think the NBA will have the most incentive to eliminate the draft. European teams could eventually put pressure on the rookie scale contracts (for instance, would Zion rather sign with the Pels or with Barcelona, if Barcelona was offering $15M/year), and at some point there would be little interest for European players to move to the NBA if they had to go through the draft.
I think tv ratings for an auction would crush a draft. I'd definitely watch.
Brings back unsavory histories. I don't think I could support an auction and prefer something where the player has a choice in their future team.
yeah,the optics... wouldn't be great.
These sports unions are absolutely stupid. Rookies essentially have no representation and it’s ridiculous how underpaid they are relative to the vets.
Practically speaking, the NBA won’t make any big changes, but they are the league where a draft is the absolute worst solution to any problem they face. In the end, all they’d have to do is:
1) Give every team a hard salary cap, for competitive balance (they all get the same number of timeouts, after all)
2) Limit the length of guaranteed contracts so that one bad offseason doesn’t punish a team’s fans forever
3) Make rookies free agents just the same as any other free agent
4) Give players a bonus at the end of the year to ensure they get their share of the overall revenue
Then you have no incentives for tanking, and teams could compete for the best available talent based on their available cap space and willingness to pay for a given player. No max salary, no vet exceptions, no Bird rights, no rookie scale, burn it all down.
Bingo!