37 thoughts on “August 3, 2020: Stalock Lockdown”

    1. I have to imagine the Twins are near the bottom of that stat.

      I guess it does still pay to have an offense.

      Also, holy cow, SIX teams have a batting average under .200 so far. Three teams have an OPS under Pedro Florimon's career OPS.

      1. I would imagine that hitting was more affected by the shut-downs and restarts and whatnot than pitching, right?

        1. I'm sure that's the case.

          It's kind of weird. Run scoring isn't that far off where it's been the last few years (though it's a sharp drop from last year's dinger party), but hits per 9 are lower than they've been since 1968. It's not really like home runs are completely out of whack, either (any more than they have been over the past 5 years, anyway), so it just seems like some teams have been okay at scoring and a bunch really, really haven't been.

          It's only been a handful of games, so I don't know how much a person can read into it, other than "pitchers are further along, and the hitters haven't quite caught up yet", but we only really get a few more handfuls before the season is over, so...

            1. last year during April/March: 4.6 runs/g/t across the Majors, on an average of 38.1 PA/g/t.
              2018 April/March: 4.47 runs/g/t on 38.6 PA/g/t

              so far this year: 4.52 r/g/t on 35.67 PA/g/t.

                1. I know that conventional wisdom always puts pitchers ahead of hitters at the beginning of the season and that warmer weather helps the ball carry better. I am not fully cognizant of the magnitudes of these competing influences, but, obviously, am postulating that the early-season effect is predominating right now.

          2. The whole season (if 60ish games are played) is going to be SSS, so I have been thinking after 20 games might be a good place to start looking at trends and such. Most starting pitchers will have 3 games and position player should have 60 to 80 plate appearances.

  2. I wasn't prepared for just how excited my boys were for the Wild game, really fun seeing something bring them so much joy right now.

    2. I'm several rungs below the business casual level now, My sister, who is an actual big shot for a local MMMining company told me she does conference calls in her bath robe in the morning.

  4. Apparently, the Rock and a partner are buying the XFL out of bankruptcy (who knew?).

    Apparently, the price is $15 million. They had 8 franchises and a deal with both ESPN and Fox when they went belly up in April, at the height of the initial wave of COVID. Hefty debts.

    Seems pretty optimistic to me. Minor league pro football hasn't proven to be exactly a growth industry. Even the Arena Football League, which operated for 30 years, finally collapsed in November.

    1. I used to watch Arena football and was really fun. It reminded me of the game the kids in our neighborhood played on the streets of SBGville when I was a kid.

      1. Indianapolis briefly had an Arena League team when I lived there, really fun to watch in person. Didn't realize they folded last year.

        I agree that it is an optimistic effort, thought I read that ESPN and Fox made it clear that purchasing the XFL didn't include the TV deals.

          1. The Firebirds, originally from Albany. I still joke with my sister about the Trick Daddy song "Take it to da House," which I remember playing way too often during the game.

            Now, while a fun experience, it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as the Indiana Twisters indoor soccer team.

            1. We went to a Twisters playoff game on probably 94 (Wikipedia informs me it was 97 -ed.)or so. It was a blast

  5. Hardballtalk is gone. Craig and Bill out at NBCSports

  6. Thirteen total positive tests: seven players and six staff.

    1. Eight showing symptoms so far. That's disconcerting. Hopefully, none of them will get seriously ill.

      1. and hopefully they won't end up with myocarditis or having infected others who end up hospitalized or worse.

  7. Has anybody done any of the bike trails around Stillwater? I'm taking PTO tomorrow to take advantage of the weather. Deciding between Stillwater and Red Wing.

  8. Welcome back Thielbar.

    1. Good for him! And since Wade wasn't playing, there's not much sense having him on the active roster.

      1. With all these pitcher coming up with nics and bumps (Rich Hill the lastest to be bumped for a start) makes sense to add a pitcher. I wish Wade would have got into more games.

  9. The Star Trib will now be displaying COVID cases by zip code, for precision analysis anxiety and speculative amateur epidemiology-ing.
    Just what I needed.

    1. Dakota County already provides data by city, which is a little less granular than by zip code (Eagan has at least three zip codes). I now know that 555 people in Eagan have had a positive COVID test result out of about 70,000 residents.

  10. Following up on the pesto conversation from the other day:

    Tonight we picked a little more than 16 (loosely packed) cups of basil. The plants were a little thinned out, but there will be plenty more to harvest in a few days.

    Let's see if the image loads this time SelectShow

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