Gotta say, I'm not minding the exchange rate these days.
18 thoughts on “October 4, 2022: The Almighty Dollar”
The other night we booked a VRBO for our March vacation. I really wanted to hit AZ once again, but was overruled. We will be heading to a house on a river 45 minutes south of Savannah, Georgia. We will make a few day trips into Savannah and I will find a golf course or two to play, but mostly it will be relaxing and disconnecting from everything for a while. My wife and I will drive down (making it a full 2 weeks off of work), and the kids will fly down just for the 7 days. We may swing through RhuRu territory on the way down.
You are more than welcome!
February we're spending time at Hiton Head and then Amelia Island; our vrbos are large enough that we'll have friends with us and then later a SIL, but some of the time will be remote working :/
A 32-team MLB is so last decade. How about 48 teams instead? Baumann names 13 cities, including three in Mexico, but states "MLB franchise in every U.S. city of half a million people or more".
I wish expansion was considered more seriously for increasing the scoring. It's worked every time.
If we accept the historical consensus that the various Negro Leagues were major-league quality, and that the old Pacific Coast League and (at times) the Mexican League were both “Open” leagues that occupied the talent space between the AL/NL and AAA, then one might argue that there was a period ending sometime in the mid-Fifties in which there were more major league or near-major league teams than exist now. Given the smaller size of the pre-expansion AL & NL, I’m not sure there were significantly more, but a few more seems likely. Adding several teams in Canada and Mexico would be awesome, but it would be awesome if it was politically feasible for teams to exist in Cuba & Venezuela, too. (Oh, that regular-season travel to Japan & Korea was possible...)
For MLB to grow to 48 teams without a significant drain on its talent pool, I think it would need to benefit from the demise of the NFL and college football. Coincidentally, Baumann identifies the South as the US region most underrepresented by MLB teams. The level of athleticism one needs to succeed in the NFL at a skill position would certainly be enough to get one in the conversation in baseball on the defensive side, but the vision and coordination skills required for playing football don’t seem as demanding as they do for hitting MLB-quality pitching. Presumably any quarterback would find work on a pitching mound in some capacity, absent hitting skills that might make them a two-way player or laser-armed outfielder. I’m not sure what one would do about linemen; presumably some of the more soft-handed might find work as catchers or first basemen, but they’d need a different training regimen to succeed in baseball. I think there are better reasons to root for the demise of football, but the expansion of baseball would certainly not get lost too far down on my list.
Look at the race for the last Wild Card spot in the NL, in which the Phillies and Brewers have spent the past two weeks bumbling around like a pair of somnambulant dachsunds investigating a cricket. Eventually one sneezes and forgets what he was doing in the first place, and the other gets tired and plops over for a nap. The cricket escapes unharmed. Surely these are not playoff-quality teams.
Baumann is one of my favorite active writers. Meg Rowley’s stewardship of FanGraphs continues to make her (IMO) the best [managing] editor the site’s ever had.
Half a million or more? That gets you 38, and rules out Miami, Oakland, Minneapolis, Arlington TX, Tampa, Cleveland, Anaheim, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
Aaron Judge 1-4 with maybe one more at bat in today's game first game of a double header. Dropping to .310. Also, still stuck on 61 HRs with 2 games left.
And Luis is leading off tonight, so he's convinced Rocco that his hamstring will hold up.
Batting race aside, I don't see the point of having him play hurt in the last two meaningless games of the season.
But the Yankees broadcasters said mean things about Arraez last night!
Judge ended up going 1-5 today. At this point I'm really interested to see if he gets 62. I'm sure the Yankees would love to sit Judge as well.
I've read quite a bit about Maris going after 61. Judge is feeling massive pressure right now, and that's not a good way to go to the plate.
It's way different for Judge than it was for Maris.
And there it is. What a hitter
I was hoping he would get 65 or so. Hard to do when you don't get much to hit.
if he gets 62. I'm sure the Yankees would love to sit Judge as well.
Called it. Judge gets the day off today. I think Arraez has to go 0-7 to not win batting title.
I'm sure the commissioner called the Twins front office.
I know Luis would prefer to go down swinging singling
I'm sure he would. I assume everyone on the team wants to play--they shouldn't be there if they don't. But that's why you have a manager to make those decisions, rather than leaving them up to the players.
In addition to batting average, Luis Arraez also leads the American League with 12.6 at bats per strikeout. Miguel Sano's AB/SO ratio last year was 2.6.
The other night we booked a VRBO for our March vacation. I really wanted to hit AZ once again, but was overruled. We will be heading to a house on a river 45 minutes south of Savannah, Georgia. We will make a few day trips into Savannah and I will find a golf course or two to play, but mostly it will be relaxing and disconnecting from everything for a while. My wife and I will drive down (making it a full 2 weeks off of work), and the kids will fly down just for the 7 days. We may swing through RhuRu territory on the way down.
You are more than welcome!
February we're spending time at Hiton Head and then Amelia Island; our vrbos are large enough that we'll have friends with us and then later a SIL, but some of the time will be remote working :/
A 32-team MLB is so last decade. How about 48 teams instead? Baumann names 13 cities, including three in Mexico, but states "MLB franchise in every U.S. city of half a million people or more".
I wish expansion was considered more seriously for increasing the scoring. It's worked every time.
If we accept the historical consensus that the various Negro Leagues were major-league quality, and that the old Pacific Coast League and (at times) the Mexican League were both “Open” leagues that occupied the talent space between the AL/NL and AAA, then one might argue that there was a period ending sometime in the mid-Fifties in which there were more major league or near-major league teams than exist now. Given the smaller size of the pre-expansion AL & NL, I’m not sure there were significantly more, but a few more seems likely. Adding several teams in Canada and Mexico would be awesome, but it would be awesome if it was politically feasible for teams to exist in Cuba & Venezuela, too. (Oh, that regular-season travel to Japan & Korea was possible...)
For MLB to grow to 48 teams without a significant drain on its talent pool, I think it would need to benefit from the demise of the NFL and college football. Coincidentally, Baumann identifies the South as the US region most underrepresented by MLB teams. The level of athleticism one needs to succeed in the NFL at a skill position would certainly be enough to get one in the conversation in baseball on the defensive side, but the vision and coordination skills required for playing football don’t seem as demanding as they do for hitting MLB-quality pitching. Presumably any quarterback would find work on a pitching mound in some capacity, absent hitting skills that might make them a two-way player or laser-armed outfielder. I’m not sure what one would do about linemen; presumably some of the more soft-handed might find work as catchers or first basemen, but they’d need a different training regimen to succeed in baseball. I think there are better reasons to root for the demise of football, but the expansion of baseball would certainly not get lost too far down on my list.
Baumann is one of my favorite active writers. Meg Rowley’s stewardship of FanGraphs continues to make her (IMO) the best [managing] editor the site’s ever had.
Half a million or more? That gets you 38, and rules out Miami, Oakland, Minneapolis, Arlington TX, Tampa, Cleveland, Anaheim, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
Aaron Judge 1-4 with maybe one more at bat in today's game first game of a double header. Dropping to .310. Also, still stuck on 61 HRs with 2 games left.
And Luis is leading off tonight, so he's convinced Rocco that his hamstring will hold up.
Batting race aside, I don't see the point of having him play hurt in the last two meaningless games of the season.
But the Yankees broadcasters said mean things about Arraez last night!
Judge ended up going 1-5 today. At this point I'm really interested to see if he gets 62. I'm sure the Yankees would love to sit Judge as well.
I've read quite a bit about Maris going after 61. Judge is feeling massive pressure right now, and that's not a good way to go to the plate.
It's way different for Judge than it was for Maris.
And there it is. What a hitter
I was hoping he would get 65 or so. Hard to do when you don't get much to hit.
if he gets 62. I'm sure the Yankees would love to sit Judge as well.
Called it. Judge gets the day off today. I think Arraez has to go 0-7 to not win batting title.
I'm sure the commissioner called the Twins front office.
I know Luis would prefer to go down
swingingsinglingI'm sure he would. I assume everyone on the team wants to play--they shouldn't be there if they don't. But that's why you have a manager to make those decisions, rather than leaving them up to the players.
In addition to batting average, Luis Arraez also leads the American League with 12.6 at bats per strikeout. Miguel Sano's AB/SO ratio last year was 2.6.