I've been bootless for about a week and this weekend pushed the limits of what I should be doing on still healing surgically repaired limbs.
20 thoughts on “October 17, 2022: Up And About”
There’s something to be said about the new MLB playoff format when a 111-win and two 101-win teams are all out after the Wild Card and division series.
Seeing a lot of this kind of takes on the tweets machine and I'm over it. Its not like the Padres and Phils have small payrolls.
1. New York Mets $235.6 million
2. Los Angeles Dodgers $214.5 million
3. New York Yankees $211.2 million
4. San Diego Padres $184.5 million
5. Chicago White Sox $169.6 million
6. Philadelphia Phillies $168.9 million
..
30. Cleveland Guardians $29.1 million
St Louis and Toronto also had upper half payrolls. Teams that have spent money on good players have made the playoffs and MLB had loaded the schedules in favor of the higher win teams with more days off and home field advantage.
I'd say the system is working. We've had entertaining baseball and that's all I want out of the playoff if the Twins are not in it
Chicago White Sox had a $169 million dollar payroll! Ouch.
The system isn't designed to determine who was the best team for the season. It's designed to take the good teams from the season and determine which one can play the best in some short series in October. It's doing what it's designed to do.
I mentioned to DK that I'm worried teams inclined to slash payroll will be even more inclined to do so now.
If both NY and the LA teams are eliminated, there's hell to pay!!!1!
Those payroll figures don't seem right to me. I can't believe Cleveland's payroll was under $30 million.
RosterResource says $69 million payroll and $93 million luxury tax payroll for the Guardians. Those figures are $196 and $215 million respectively for the White Sox.
I think the overall system sucks in that there is way too much of a payroll gap between the top teams and the median or 25th percentile payroll. Each team should pay money into the league, and then the league should give each team a budget number for salary. If a team decides to underspend for whatever reason, that money should go back to the players as a percentage bonus to their paycheck. Players should also reach free agency much sooner and contract length should be capped at 4 years plus an option year.
Say each team gets $150M to spend, for a total of $4.5B leaguewide. If the teams as group underspend by $75M, then players would get a 1.67% bonus at the end of the year. It would be great for competitive balance, small market teams would be more competitive, and big market teams would still make a ton of money. The big market teams still won't go for it, though, because now they get to make a lot of money AND they get to use that money to a massive competitive advantage. But it would be way better for the league as a whole to have better competitive balance. Sure the Yankees and Dodgers individually have the biggest markets, but the league doesn't get nearly the interest in the World Series that the Super Bowl gets, at least in part because there are so many markets where fans are totally disenfranchised. If your team is perpetually 5-6 years from competing, then you stop paying attention.
Also, 1992 was the last year that the Yankees lost 80 games.
1992,
In '94, they won their division but there were no playoffs due to the strike, and in '93 they would have easily been a WC team under any post-strike playoff system.
They've been above-.500 every season for the last 30 years, and they've effectively been a playoff team in all but 4 of those 30 years. There are probably a lot of teams that have qualified for the playoffs 4 or fewer times in the last 30 years. This agitates me greatly.
Also, baseball is absolutely the worst sport when your team is really bad for multiple years -- they should be doing the most to prevent those situations from happening, but in a lot of ways they do the least. Just expanding the playoffs doesn't really make it any better to sit through all of those other losing seasons.
Ubes
This sucks
Thank you for this
Our neighbors are adding onto the back of their house, which meant that their deck would no longer fit their property. They offered it to us, and what with lumber prices and all, we certainly weren't going to turn it down. Originally we were going to put in egress windows this fall, but instead shifted our focus to the deck, because they needed it removed this year still, so the builders could get going on the expansion (At this point I doubt they'll actually do any construction this year, but they moved the neighbor's power line, and a few things like that.). Long story short, about 4 weeks ago we got a crew together and managed to get a long trailer underneath the deck. Near the house it was probably only 2 ft off the ground, so we actually had to go dig trenches under the deck to get the trailer underneath. We managed to do it, jacked it up, and cut the support beams. Sure enough, it dropped straight onto the trailer and we were able to pull it into our yard.
We then paused a few weeks for harvest and weddings and other things, and now this weekend we took on the task of getting it attached to our house. We have a cement pad off the back of our house (with footings, poured by previous owners in anticipation of someday expanding which they never did). This meant that 6 of our support beams were being anchored to the pad, and the other 6 are dug (well, 5... one needs to be angled back to the cement). We dug the holes and cemented wells in over the past weeks, to prepare for the installation. This weekend then we measured the support beams and cut them. We then removed the bolts from the previous beams, so that we could fit the new ones into place (otherwise the structure was too tight to fit the new 4x4 posts into the structure). Bolted the new support beams that were going onto the cement into place, put the beams for the dirt into their wells, and prepped the house (removed siding, added board to the house, added matching board to the deck, with appropriate cut-outs). Then we moved the trailer into place, which took some doing to be precise. Once it was in place we blocked up the deck on one side, with 1 jack, and had 2 jacks on the other side (big old handyman jacks). We then tried to get the trailer out, but because the ground angled away the back of the trailer was hitting the underside of the deck (we had just 14" of space over the cement pad - hence the blocking and jacks - the trailer needed at least 3 feet). So we lifted the front end of the trailer and began to move it out. As that happened one the supporting beams was lifted off of it's place, which made a tripod of the deck instead of having 4 points of balance. Which mean the whole structure's center of gravity changed and it slid about 4 feet, rotating away from the house and directly towards the corner where I was working. It knocked me back and to the ground, and for a second there I thought my legs would be crushed, but the support beams held on the concrete where they landed.
We then re-positioned the deck, lifting it up slightly with the jacks to give it some room to move, then slowly pushing it with the skidsteer, rotating it and sliding it back until it was flush with the house. Lowered it down by the house, jacked up the end away from the house so the support beams that went into the ground could be positioned, then dropped it back down onto those. Bolted them in and screwed the deck to the house. We still need to get some concrete poured anchors put into the cement, but we'll do that throughout the next few weeks. I also need to reconstruct the stairs, since our house is notably lower than the neighbor's were at that spot. I'm also going to have to either narrow them or, more likely, cut around another concrete step we have nearby.
I ran some rough calculations for dry, treated wood, and I figure this 20'x16' deck weighs a minimum of 2200 pounds, not counting anything but lumber. It was so much work, but also way less work than actually building a new deck from scratch. And the price was definitely right - all the new material we needed probably totaled something like $300.00, and family helped, so they were happy with chili and beer.
Glad you’re okay from the close call. Always nice to see family volunteers make a big sweat equity project happen. I cherish memories of re-roofing my uncle’s house with Pops, several of my uncles, and a few cousins.
It’s snowing in the People’s Republic today.
Snow? That's so last week.
Last week we had graupel. Today was the real stuff.
Lunch: goat merguez & egg tacos. Just one of the reasons working from home has been a huge quality of life improvement.
Goat merguez is a thing? Interesting. Did you make it?
I have had an itch to make goat birria....
The local whole animal butcher made it. They had some gorgeous goat cuts a couple weeks back. When I asked if they had found a regular supplier, they said no, they just get a few goats a year from some local folks who raise them. Judging by the interval, they made good use of the trim. The casings were lamb. Far as I know, goat is an option for merguez.
The goats must be no more than yearlings, because the flavor was much milder than I’m accustomed to when I get goat from an Indian or Middle Eastern restaurant. Think of it akin to the difference flavor profiles of Australian or New Zealand lamb and domestic lamb.
Seeing a lot of this kind of takes on the tweets machine and I'm over it. Its not like the Padres and Phils have small payrolls.
1. New York Mets $235.6 million
2. Los Angeles Dodgers $214.5 million
3. New York Yankees $211.2 million
4. San Diego Padres $184.5 million
5. Chicago White Sox $169.6 million
6. Philadelphia Phillies $168.9 million
..
30. Cleveland Guardians $29.1 million
St Louis and Toronto also had upper half payrolls. Teams that have spent money on good players have made the playoffs and MLB had loaded the schedules in favor of the higher win teams with more days off and home field advantage.
I'd say the system is working. We've had entertaining baseball and that's all I want out of the playoff if the Twins are not in it
Chicago White Sox had a $169 million dollar payroll! Ouch.
The system isn't designed to determine who was the best team for the season. It's designed to take the good teams from the season and determine which one can play the best in some short series in October. It's doing what it's designed to do.
I mentioned to DK that I'm worried teams inclined to slash payroll will be even more inclined to do so now.
If both NY and the LA teams are eliminated, there's hell to pay!!!1!
Those payroll figures don't seem right to me. I can't believe Cleveland's payroll was under $30 million.
RosterResource says a nice $69 million estimated payroll for the year. Ramírez alone was $22 million.
I've seen a number of different numbers. This one through August, 2022 has the Guardians at 90 million and the White Sox at 215!!
https://www.axios.com/2022/09/20/money-wins-baseball-games-mlb-2022
RosterResource says $69 million payroll and $93 million luxury tax payroll for the Guardians. Those figures are $196 and $215 million respectively for the White Sox.
I think the overall system sucks in that there is way too much of a payroll gap between the top teams and the median or 25th percentile payroll. Each team should pay money into the league, and then the league should give each team a budget number for salary. If a team decides to underspend for whatever reason, that money should go back to the players as a percentage bonus to their paycheck. Players should also reach free agency much sooner and contract length should be capped at 4 years plus an option year.
Say each team gets $150M to spend, for a total of $4.5B leaguewide. If the teams as group underspend by $75M, then players would get a 1.67% bonus at the end of the year. It would be great for competitive balance, small market teams would be more competitive, and big market teams would still make a ton of money. The big market teams still won't go for it, though, because now they get to make a lot of money AND they get to use that money to a massive competitive advantage. But it would be way better for the league as a whole to have better competitive balance. Sure the Yankees and Dodgers individually have the biggest markets, but the league doesn't get nearly the interest in the World Series that the Super Bowl gets, at least in part because there are so many markets where fans are totally disenfranchised. If your team is perpetually 5-6 years from competing, then you stop paying attention.
Also, 1992 was the last year that the Yankees lost 80 games.
1992,
In '94, they won their division but there were no playoffs due to the strike, and in '93 they would have easily been a WC team under any post-strike playoff system.
They've been above-.500 every season for the last 30 years, and they've effectively been a playoff team in all but 4 of those 30 years. There are probably a lot of teams that have qualified for the playoffs 4 or fewer times in the last 30 years. This agitates me greatly.
Also, baseball is absolutely the worst sport when your team is really bad for multiple years -- they should be doing the most to prevent those situations from happening, but in a lot of ways they do the least. Just expanding the playoffs doesn't really make it any better to sit through all of those other losing seasons.
Ubes
This sucks
Thank you for this
Our neighbors are adding onto the back of their house, which meant that their deck would no longer fit their property. They offered it to us, and what with lumber prices and all, we certainly weren't going to turn it down. Originally we were going to put in egress windows this fall, but instead shifted our focus to the deck, because they needed it removed this year still, so the builders could get going on the expansion (At this point I doubt they'll actually do any construction this year, but they moved the neighbor's power line, and a few things like that.). Long story short, about 4 weeks ago we got a crew together and managed to get a long trailer underneath the deck. Near the house it was probably only 2 ft off the ground, so we actually had to go dig trenches under the deck to get the trailer underneath. We managed to do it, jacked it up, and cut the support beams. Sure enough, it dropped straight onto the trailer and we were able to pull it into our yard.
We then paused a few weeks for harvest and weddings and other things, and now this weekend we took on the task of getting it attached to our house. We have a cement pad off the back of our house (with footings, poured by previous owners in anticipation of someday expanding which they never did). This meant that 6 of our support beams were being anchored to the pad, and the other 6 are dug (well, 5... one needs to be angled back to the cement). We dug the holes and cemented wells in over the past weeks, to prepare for the installation. This weekend then we measured the support beams and cut them. We then removed the bolts from the previous beams, so that we could fit the new ones into place (otherwise the structure was too tight to fit the new 4x4 posts into the structure). Bolted the new support beams that were going onto the cement into place, put the beams for the dirt into their wells, and prepped the house (removed siding, added board to the house, added matching board to the deck, with appropriate cut-outs). Then we moved the trailer into place, which took some doing to be precise. Once it was in place we blocked up the deck on one side, with 1 jack, and had 2 jacks on the other side (big old handyman jacks). We then tried to get the trailer out, but because the ground angled away the back of the trailer was hitting the underside of the deck (we had just 14" of space over the cement pad - hence the blocking and jacks - the trailer needed at least 3 feet). So we lifted the front end of the trailer and began to move it out. As that happened one the supporting beams was lifted off of it's place, which made a tripod of the deck instead of having 4 points of balance. Which mean the whole structure's center of gravity changed and it slid about 4 feet, rotating away from the house and directly towards the corner where I was working. It knocked me back and to the ground, and for a second there I thought my legs would be crushed, but the support beams held on the concrete where they landed.
We then re-positioned the deck, lifting it up slightly with the jacks to give it some room to move, then slowly pushing it with the skidsteer, rotating it and sliding it back until it was flush with the house. Lowered it down by the house, jacked up the end away from the house so the support beams that went into the ground could be positioned, then dropped it back down onto those. Bolted them in and screwed the deck to the house. We still need to get some concrete poured anchors put into the cement, but we'll do that throughout the next few weeks. I also need to reconstruct the stairs, since our house is notably lower than the neighbor's were at that spot. I'm also going to have to either narrow them or, more likely, cut around another concrete step we have nearby.
I ran some rough calculations for dry, treated wood, and I figure this 20'x16' deck weighs a minimum of 2200 pounds, not counting anything but lumber. It was so much work, but also way less work than actually building a new deck from scratch. And the price was definitely right - all the new material we needed probably totaled something like $300.00, and family helped, so they were happy with chili and beer.
Glad you’re okay from the close call. Always nice to see family volunteers make a big sweat equity project happen. I cherish memories of re-roofing my uncle’s house with Pops, several of my uncles, and a few cousins.
It’s snowing in the People’s Republic today.
Snow? That's so last week.
Last week we had graupel. Today was the real stuff.
Lunch: goat merguez & egg tacos. Just one of the reasons working from home has been a huge quality of life improvement.
Goat merguez is a thing? Interesting. Did you make it?
I have had an itch to make goat birria....
The local whole animal butcher made it. They had some gorgeous goat cuts a couple weeks back. When I asked if they had found a regular supplier, they said no, they just get a few goats a year from some local folks who raise them. Judging by the interval, they made good use of the trim. The casings were lamb. Far as I know, goat is an option for merguez.
The goats must be no more than yearlings, because the flavor was much milder than I’m accustomed to when I get goat from an Indian or Middle Eastern restaurant. Think of it akin to the difference flavor profiles of Australian or New Zealand lamb and domestic lamb.