Heh – they were able to upgrade me to business class on my flight from TLV to SFO last Saturday. I actually got something like 8 hours of sleep on that flight, which for me is a miracle.
that’s another weird construction i keep bumping into on podcasts. so semi-official sounding. “was able to.” it adds three words while actually making the sentence less accurate.
i was able to do such and such. (but i’m not telling you if i did or not. just that i was able to.) would make sense in, after my surgery i was able to see. but not as much in a narrative, i looked through the window and i was able to see the weapon. my guess is this has to be some kind of police-world languageing. where actually seeing isn’t as legally valid as being able to see.
sorry, did i say see? i meant observe. i was able to observe. (i saw, goddammit!)
more linguistic boringness for your pleasures:
at some moment, people answer questions with a first word “so.” i say at some moment because there seems to be a kind of answer that triggers this, but as awkward as it already is, not all answers are applicable for the technique.
also the answer starter “that’s right.” —”so i read in your book that such and such which made me wonder if so and such.” —”that’s right. what you so and such is that this and that.”
*i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
Geoff Nunberg or someone like that talked about “so” on Fresh Air or something like that a little while ago. I can’t remember what he said about it, but it was interesting.
My impression is that it happens when a person is asked a question about something mildly complicated that they are sort of expert in, and they want to either hedge their answer a little or begin with some background that the interviewer didn’t ask about but that they think is necessary context for the ignorant listener. I also have a feeling that it originated with the British, but I can’t back that up.
Interesting. That usage, and the underlying “background that the interviewer didn’t ask about but that they think is necessary context” situation, is very common with math people.
math people. as well as scientists and techies. or any subclass of the explaining class.
and in the first answerer especially, i’m also hearing a little bit of a condescending “let me correct the misconceptions in your question before i answer it”:
*i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
Well, in my case I meant they had an upgrade available, for $350 of my own money (company won’t pay for underlings like me to fly business class) + 35k miles. Money well spent in this case, because I can’t abide being confined in economy-plus (let alone the back of the bus) for 16 hours.
Also, I hate the current usage of “So” to start answers, because often the condescension is obviously just below the surface. It also sounds so cliched.
Listening to some back episodes of “In Our Time,” I noticed that the host will sometimes get testy with guests who “so…” off in a background direction rather than getting right to what he asked.
Rosales hasn’t changed a bit since his previous tenure in Oakland. He’s adequate defensively, but offensively, he’s best used as the 24th-25th player on the roster getting around 8 PA per week. If the manager has to run him out there every day, and both Geren and Melvin have had to do that at times, his weaknesses become glaring. That said, this team isn’t getting OBP from anywhere other than LF, 1B and 2B so I feel like I have bigger fish to fry. Catcher, 3B and RF are all bigger issues.
7 of the 9 in the starting lineup tonight were over age 30, which is what you do if you’re trying to keep a solid veteran team together for one last run at a championship.
For a team coming off 68 and 69 win seasons that is beyond depressing. Old + bad = boring as shit. Boy do I hope they are a lot younger by August.
NYers do! because you have to (with pre-ripe avocados like that one).
but seriously, didn’t nursey mention something about super-frequent ER cases of people coming in with knife wounds in their hands? i puzzled over that one for a while before i realized people are stabbing at the pit instead of as-shown.
*i’m* AV. alex vause. put this loon in psych before she hurts someone.
People think it’s one of the most wide open fields in the years. Should be fun to handicap. Very curious about Thunder Snow and whether he can be the first ever shipper from Dubai to win the roses. Sentimental choice is Patch, horse with only one eye, happens to have drawn to the far outside #20 post, so he won’t even see the other horses.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
If you’re taking the long, long drive on I-80 beyond Reno this summer: about 125 miles of it is getting the 80 mph speed limit treatment. Also, state law is that the maximum penalty for exceeding the posted limit by no more than 5 mph is a $25 fine with no moving violation charged against the driver’s record, so the de facto limit out there is 85 mph.
Not sure where to post this. I’m looking for old stat nerds I used to circlejerk with on different A’s boards years ago.
[x-posted from Scout]: About a decade ago now I remember hearing that HITf/x was going to be the holy grail in evaluating hitters, no longer would we use “outcomes” but “process” in knowing who was better than who. The general idea being that, for example, no two doubles are alike; a bloop double doesn’t mean the hitter is some kind of crafty bat ninja, it means they got lucky. Whereas a booming frozen rope double means the hitter made great contact.
I imagined a future of HITf/x data creating what we could essentially liken to a probability function for batters. And down on the screen in the lower right corner on TV they’d put little xVelocity and xTrajectory graphs (vs. the pitcher’s f/x as well) showing the probabilistic outcome of any given pitch on any given count.
Sadly, this day didn’t come to pass. I googled around about HITf/x and saw some stuff. But I wanted to know from any of the stat geeks that stuck around here, are MLB teams using proprietary HITf/x data? Is there a new “tell all” stat I haven’t heard of? I’ve been retired from baseball fandom for a few years and stopped paying attention, but 50ccs of Kaval right into my veins have been waking the baseball cobra in my soul.
Welcome to FK. Sometimes we still talk about baseball here.
I think the current version of what you’re talking about is Statcast. They’ve been collecting data for a couple years now, and people are still figuring out what to do with all of it.
A couple examples I’ve seen this week:
Since all teams have analytics departments now, presumably there is a lot of proprietary work being done as well. But even that might not be truly revolutionary, as more and more data often gives diminishing returns.
The statcast data has led to bolder and bolder assertions from some in the community using smaller and smaller sample sizes. Sometimes it works out (i.e. everyone who wanted to sign Rich Hill based on 4 starts in 2015), sometimes it doesn’t. Overall, it makes me uneasy. While I’m sure major league franchises know how to parse those pitfalls better than the average Fangraphs user, I do not think of sabermetrics as a scientific pursuit anymore in the larger community.
I do not think of sabermetrics as a scientific pursuit anymore in the larger community.
How should I read that? Do you think Sabermetrics them/itself are failing as a scientific pursuit, or the people who use them/it on fangraphs, or a little of both?
I think to win the Anderson you have to have a range of injuries to different body parts, ideally with some of them caused by your own clumsiness. A crocked shoulder is just too mundane.
Oh I have an insane mancrush on Gigi Buffon and I would love for him to win it all, and I do like Dybala as well.
I was just hoping Monaco could pull something together. Buncha young ass attackers from the French Ligue 1 is a fun time.
Atletico is just meh.
Honestly I just prefer Barca to Madrid because Messi is ridiculous and drags his team to greatness (funny to say with Neymar and Suarez), while IMO Ronaldo is great but the team around him is also absolutely amazing. They’ve got FKing James Rodriguez rotting on the bench FFS.
Basically, to me, Barca is great because of Messi. Ronaldo is great because of Madrid.
And I have to say: mikev is one of my favorite people on here
-slusser.
Would be sorta curious to know the order “responsibility” for the success of the 2012-2014 Athletics teams between Beane, Zaidi, and Forst. I’d like to think that Forst would rank last on that list. Begging the question to me at least, do you want him having a large role in the decision making for this franchise?
Interestingly, Zaidi’s wiki page cites Beane crediting him for the Cespedes signing.
We know the A’s won’t do a lot offensively this year outside of home runs, so it’s on the pitching to make the games worth watching. And just when it seemed Gray and Graveman would be a feared one-two in the rotation, clunk.
To keep my interest the A’s are going to need to spice things up a bit…get a knuckleballer, or a flashy prospect, or start playing a chimp at short stop.
I have seen probably 90% of the innings so far this season, but after shoveling 20 feet of snow this winter it certainly didn’t escape me that today was the first 70-degree day since October. Priorities do shift as the weather warms.
I wanted to get back into baseball a bit but there’s now way this type of baseball will keep my interest. You must be really ready for summer after all that snow.
The team isn’t worth much of a commitment right now with all the veteran journeymen in the lineup. Barreto’s arrival will be the first thing that changes that, and one hopes others emerge out of the A’s system. Unfortunately, the only player the A’s might trade who would bring another interesting MLB-ready prospect would be Sonny Gray.
He had been in something of a GIDP slump, but the pair tonight gives him 7, good for sole possession of 4th in MLB (Puig, Hosmer, Solarte) and on pace for 42.
I’m in upstate California. And I watched the last half of the game with my ducks, chickens and cats. I missed the first half because I was at Ace getting fencing, potting soil, bricks, etc. So… you pegged me!
Outdoor Ace guy really seemed to hate me too. Maybe it was the 60 lbs. bags of sand.
I always want that for you too luv! Yep, they do help.
But the Ace guy… I mean he glared at me. Didn’t answer my questions or respond to me at all unless I repeated myself. An old lady coming out of the store asked me if I was okay. I must have looked stressed or something.
I can just picture Aceman’s thoughts- That bitch. Buying bricks. Does she think she’s going to build a chimney? Effing heavy stuff buying bitch.
So my baseball team sucks. I’m disgusted with my football team. My basketball team is run by idiots. My college football team has won 2 games in 17 years. My country is run by a fucking moron. But…and this is important…I still have fresh, minty breath.
Vegas is going to be great…maybe all the foreclosed homes can come to the games. They can root for the rapist(allegedly), dog beater, and blind guy the team just brought in.
With the Las Vegas Football Team I am closing in on love-hate-love-exhaustion otherwise know as Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland-Las Vegas. They’ve just stomped on my heart one too many times.
Comey gave testimony today and when I turned it on a Republican senator was grilling him on why he wasn’t indicting Huma Abedin for forwarding emails to her home computer. It’s unbelievable.
I’d like to think all the lower income white folks who vote Republican will wake up and see that all these guys care about is tax cuts for rich people but I’m not going to hold my breath. My empathy is starting to fade for these folks. The only thing that might save us is Trump and his people are dumber than a box of rocks.
So if people are willing to pay more for “cage free” eggs could I get rich from my flock? They have nightlights, beds, ducks get fresh towels for their bed, free run during the day and a nightly treat when I tuck them into their houses. I missed most of the last pineapple because I had to save it for them. .
$5?
I spent almost a hundred dollars at Ace today. That is going to make for a rough time. But it was all for either the animals or the gardens which are for me and the animals.
But not for the jaybirds. One watched me when I was planting corn. Today I saw one fly out from the “corn” patch. No corn plants have come up. Geez, I give them peanuts and would share an ear of corn.
Now I have to go to Safeway. I think my list will have to be shortened.
We planted vegetables and fruit trees in our urban garden and the gophers and birds and raccoons and god knows what else have eaten all of the apricots and broccoli and kale down to the nubs. The little apple and cherry buds are now wrapped in industrial netting. The critters are going to have to fight me for those cherries.
Okay, we didn’t win but everyone is still getting apple slices…it was great talking with you, duck wrangler…I hope you come around again real soon…oh, and Ed was here as well.
Dan Gladden, one of the Twins radio broadcasters. Their broadcast was the audio on MLB Network. The inning ended as he was getting into the story and they never got back to it.
“And if you will direct your attention out the right side of the bus, the parking lot in front of Dollar General was the site of the A&W Drive In where Dan’s parents took him for his first Baby Burger and frosty mug of root beer in 1960.”
Gladden was a minor hero in both the Twins’ World Series. But in looking this up, I discovered that my friend Pearl was deceived; he went to Fresno State but he was actually born in San Jose.
My guy, Amodei, was a No had they voted the first time but flipped to Yes this time. Heller is somebody you’d ordinarily expect to go along, but he’s up for reelection in 2018 in a swing state that went for Hillary. The Senate is going to have to water it down a lot to get him on board and that brings the Freedom Caucus back into play. Short summary of where Nevada stands.
Even if the plan is to eventually get a “compromise” bill through via reconciliation, doesn’t the initial Senate bill still have to get eight Dem votes (plus all the wary Republicans like Heller and Collins) to get past the filibuster? Maybe they can get Manchin and Heitkamp (even that seems doubtful), but not anyone else. What is their plan? They (McConnell) just said they wouldn’t kill the filibuster.
They are planning to use reconciliation, so they only need 50+ Pence. That restricts what the bill can do, and the timing of passage, but I don’t really understand all of the parliamentary issues at play.
I thought there had to be some underlying already-passed bill that they were reconciling. But now that I think about it, the Dems did the same thing with the original ACA, so I guess not.
At face value, I think that the House bill contains a whole bunch of stuff that shouldn’t be allowed in a reconciliation bill, so that stuff would have to go if they want to pass it with 50 votes in the Senate. But the wild card is that this is all just Senate parliamentary procedure. From what I’ve read, the Senate parliamentarian makes a ruling on whether it is a valid reconciliation bill but that ruling is merely offered as *advice* to the president of the Senate (Mike FKing Pence)… which makes it sound like they could pass anything they want, as long as they aren’t too frightened of the political fallout.
Yeah, Sen Portman in Ohio has already said publicly that he won’t accept the Medicaid cuts in the current draft. I’m still worried that McConnell comes up with some less-shitty-but-still-really-shitty bill that passes the Senate and then the House Freedom Caucus declines to blow it up.
Republican “moderates” in the House got rolled. I expect the same to happen to the moderate Republican senators. They have spent so long demonizing ACA that they actually think it is less politically painful to take away health insurance from millions (and kill tens of thousands) than it would be to get the blame for failing to repeal Obamacare.
May depend on whether the political pain they are worried about is electoral (i.e. facing a primary from the right vs. a motivated center-left in the general) or personal (being blackballed by mega conservative donors and shut out of post-Congress sinecures).
Heller has to eventually vote Yes on some sort of repeal or he will lose next November by virtue of some of his many conservative supporters being PO’d enough to vote for NOTA instead of him. NOTA got 3.81% in 2016, which was greater than the 2.43% margin of victory.
Any chance someone like Amodei would take him on in a primary if he votes no?
Seems to me that Heller is basically screwed either way provided the Democrats can find a halfway credible candidate and Harry Reid still has his faculties.
I’m sure there would be a push for it from the right. A logical candidate from that direction would be the AG, Adam Laxalt, who brings the family brand name recognition no Democrat will have. I think Laxalt’s current plan is to run for governor but that could change.
I’m only on board with this only if it is used judiciously, for only the biggest of big plays. While “Holy Toledo” became known as Bill’s catch phrase, he was always sparing in its use. One of my least favorite things about modern announcing is the way so many of them so obviously try to get known for a catch phrase and use it at every inconsequential turn.
I doubt judicious use will be the practice, though, stadiums suck at that.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
I can remember sitting in the Coliseum speculating on whether certain plays got a Holy Toledo and then listening to the wrap up on the way home to find out. It was a significant honor to get one.
In addition to the almost-certain excessive use, my kneejerk reaction is that it adds to the perpetual audio-visual assault. Though, with the practice of taking all the baseball information off the ribbon boards between pitches so they can flash crap like MAKE NOISE in loud colors, this doesn’t sound like it will add that much extra.
ProPublica asked Cloudflare’s top lawyer about its policy of sharing information on those who complain about racist sites. The lawyer, Doug Kramer, Cloudflare’s general counsel, defended the company’s policies by saying it is “base constitutional law that people can face their accusers.”
Old and busted: Claiming you have a First Amendment right to avoid consequences for being a racist asshole
New hotness: Claiming your racist customers have a Sixth Amendment right to harass people who complain to you about their racism
On one hand, successfully predicting the Superfecta last year is surely impressive. OTOH, it was quite chalky, as are it’s predicted finishers this year, so I wonder if the method merely tends to amplify conventional wisdom.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
After admitting that I don’t really know anything about this method, I’ll say that it doesn’t sound like artificial intelligence at all. It’s just some complicated, possibly unpredictable method for averaging the opinions of a bunch of people, right?
From the description, it doesn’t sound like it is really AI, but more a wisdom of (expert) crowds type of algorithm. So I suspect your last sentence is spot on. [Edit: or, what colin said]
Thinking about it a little more: my sense is that horse betting (like a lot of gambling, but even more so) is not really about divining a single outcome, but about assigning probabilities to all the possible outcomes and betting the ones where your estimate of the probable pay-off is larger than what is implied by the odds. So if a horse goes off at 2:1, you will bet it if you think it will win 50% of the time, but not if you think it will win only 25% of the time even if that still makes it the most likely winner. Likewise, you would bet a 20:1 horse that you think will win 10% of the time – you expect to lose most individual bets like that, but in the long run (if your estimates are right) you will come out ahead. I’m not sure there is a lot of real value in an algorithm (whether AI or human-based) that just picks a single most-likely winner, without assigning a probability, unless of course the winner it picks is a long-shot, which (per the first point) does not seem to be the case here.
Thanks! For the bettor (at least for this bettor) the best use of this data is probability of hitting the board, relative to the odds. So Hence, given a 35% chance of a top 4 finish, looks quite appealing at the 15-1 morning line price. Unfortunately Hence is getting buzz as the “Wise Guy” pick, so I expect those odds will drop.
"Kraut will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no kraut."
FK United.
That is all.
stock went up today, must be doing something right, eh?
They’ve been working on fixing my plane since 2pm, updating the delay by 30 minutes every half hour.
I SAID THE STOCK WENT UP…..END.OF.STORY.
is there any other way??
Heh – they were able to upgrade me to business class on my flight from TLV to SFO last Saturday. I actually got something like 8 hours of sleep on that flight, which for me is a miracle.
Meanwhile I’m losing my go-to airline (Virgin America), and next time I go to LA I won’t even get to use the now-familiar terminal.
that’s another weird construction i keep bumping into on podcasts. so semi-official sounding. “was able to.” it adds three words while actually making the sentence less accurate.
i was able to do such and such. (but i’m not telling you if i did or not. just that i was able to.) would make sense in, after my surgery i was able to see. but not as much in a narrative, i looked through the window and i was able to see the weapon. my guess is this has to be some kind of police-world languageing. where actually seeing isn’t as legally valid as being able to see.
sorry, did i say see? i meant observe. i was able to observe. (i saw, goddammit!)
more linguistic boringness for your pleasures:
at some moment, people answer questions with a first word “so.” i say at some moment because there seems to be a kind of answer that triggers this, but as awkward as it already is, not all answers are applicable for the technique.
also the answer starter “that’s right.” —”so i read in your book that such and such which made me wonder if so and such.” —”that’s right. what you so and such is that this and that.”
Geoff Nunberg or someone like that talked about “so” on Fresh Air or something like that a little while ago. I can’t remember what he said about it, but it was interesting.
My impression is that it happens when a person is asked a question about something mildly complicated that they are sort of expert in, and they want to either hedge their answer a little or begin with some background that the interviewer didn’t ask about but that they think is necessary context for the ignorant listener. I also have a feeling that it originated with the British, but I can’t back that up.
Interesting. That usage, and the underlying “background that the interviewer didn’t ask about but that they think is necessary context” situation, is very common with math people.
found it.
http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732859/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-starting-a-sentence-with-so
math people. as well as scientists and techies. or any subclass of the explaining class.
and in the first answerer especially, i’m also hearing a little bit of a condescending “let me correct the misconceptions in your question before i answer it”:
Yeah, there’s sometimes a sigh built into the so.
Well, in my case I meant they had an upgrade available, for $350 of my own money (company won’t pay for underlings like me to fly business class) + 35k miles. Money well spent in this case, because I can’t abide being confined in economy-plus (let alone the back of the bus) for 16 hours.
Also, I hate the current usage of “So” to start answers, because often the condescension is obviously just below the surface. It also sounds so cliched.
So, you just think you should be more comfortable because you have a bunch of fake airline miles?
:-D
Thanks, and go As.
If bed were here he’d say “And mikeV wins the Twins series.”
You are awesome.
awww.
Thanks, and go As.
Listening to some back episodes of “In Our Time,” I noticed that the host will sometimes get testy with guests who “so…” off in a background direction rather than getting right to what he asked.
1 2 3
He looks like Sonny.
curvebaal strikes? curveball strikes.
He sure threw that one in the strike zone.
vince, its not the spot in the order that produces a low batting order and you were never in LA, its Anaheim
Holy shit
Well, at least Sonny’s BABIP is still .000.
Sonny is throwing batting practice.
His fastball is totally straight, and now he doesn’t want to throw it.
sounds like i picked a good time to not know where the hell they hid the A’s on the radio
98.5, assuming you can get it in San Francisco.
why do they kick the manager out in baseball? wouldn’t it be better to kick out the catcher or something?
ken is right, it was probably the best sonny game in a long time
Where this team is now, I think we are trying to maximize Sonny’s late-July trade value, so that was fine for Start #1 of ~15.
The .500 quest aside, I wanna know if Adam Rosales will ever get his OPS back above .700
Rosales hasn’t changed a bit since his previous tenure in Oakland. He’s adequate defensively, but offensively, he’s best used as the 24th-25th player on the roster getting around 8 PA per week. If the manager has to run him out there every day, and both Geren and Melvin have had to do that at times, his weaknesses become glaring. That said, this team isn’t getting OBP from anywhere other than LF, 1B and 2B so I feel like I have bigger fish to fry. Catcher, 3B and RF are all bigger issues.
the way you’re describing it, I’m starting to think we might not win it all this year.
Thanks, and go As.
7 of the 9 in the starting lineup tonight were over age 30, which is what you do if you’re trying to keep a solid veteran team together for one last run at a championship.
For a team coming off 68 and 69 win seasons that is beyond depressing. Old + bad = boring as shit. Boy do I hope they are a lot younger by August.
Posted the morning after the 23-year-old .317/.446/.707 3B on the other team hit one about 800 feet off Sonny Gray.
Hard to imagine why the Twins let Plouffe go.
dude cmon it barely went 450.
Thanks, and go As.
Not sure what Range Factor is exactly, but Plouffe’s UZR range runs are currently below average.
It is just plays made per game. One of Bill James’ stats from the first generation of sabermetrics, before batted ball data was available.
@athletics delete your account
They need to fill this job opening immediately before this happens again.
I still can’t get over this tweet. Someone needs to bring it up with Kaval at office hours.
This is quite the display of pitching.
well then. i see a theme
good for joe mauer
Go Warriors
Another Englishmajor sighting! The TV truck loves her.
Did I miss something, why is Cesar Valdez still on the team?
did David know about alanso’s swing change when he was brought back?
I’m in the second deck tonight (my season ticket holder cousin gave me free tickets) so let’s see if they can find me there.
This is borderline more embarrassing than publishing Bret Stephens.
The best part is that the video appears to have been made in 2014.
(also, who removes the meat before slicing it?!?)
NYers do! because you have to (with pre-ripe avocados like that one).
but seriously, didn’t nursey mention something about super-frequent ER cases of people coming in with knife wounds in their hands? i puzzled over that one for a while before i realized people are stabbing at the pit instead of as-shown.
for fucks sake
Derby field and morning line odds are out:
http://www.nj.com/horse-racing/index.ssf/2017/05/kentucky_derby_2017_odds_who_are_the_favorites_to_win_horse_racings_run_for_the_roses.html
People think it’s one of the most wide open fields in the years. Should be fun to handicap. Very curious about Thunder Snow and whether he can be the first ever shipper from Dubai to win the roses. Sentimental choice is Patch, horse with only one eye, happens to have drawn to the far outside #20 post, so he won’t even see the other horses.
If you’re taking the long, long drive on I-80 beyond Reno this summer: about 125 miles of it is getting the 80 mph speed limit treatment. Also, state law is that the maximum penalty for exceeding the posted limit by no more than 5 mph is a $25 fine with no moving violation charged against the driver’s record, so the de facto limit out there is 85 mph.
Not sure where to post this. I’m looking for old stat nerds I used to circlejerk with on different A’s boards years ago.
[x-posted from Scout]: About a decade ago now I remember hearing that HITf/x was going to be the holy grail in evaluating hitters, no longer would we use “outcomes” but “process” in knowing who was better than who. The general idea being that, for example, no two doubles are alike; a bloop double doesn’t mean the hitter is some kind of crafty bat ninja, it means they got lucky. Whereas a booming frozen rope double means the hitter made great contact.
I imagined a future of HITf/x data creating what we could essentially liken to a probability function for batters. And down on the screen in the lower right corner on TV they’d put little xVelocity and xTrajectory graphs (vs. the pitcher’s f/x as well) showing the probabilistic outcome of any given pitch on any given count.
Sadly, this day didn’t come to pass. I googled around about HITf/x and saw some stuff. But I wanted to know from any of the stat geeks that stuck around here, are MLB teams using proprietary HITf/x data? Is there a new “tell all” stat I haven’t heard of? I’ve been retired from baseball fandom for a few years and stopped paying attention, but 50ccs of Kaval right into my veins have been waking the baseball cobra in my soul.
Thanks in advance?
Welcome to FK. Sometimes we still talk about baseball here.
I think the current version of what you’re talking about is Statcast. They’ve been collecting data for a couple years now, and people are still figuring out what to do with all of it.
A couple examples I’ve seen this week:
Best catches based on location and time of flight.
UZR updated using hang time
Being able to quantify these things should improve defensive stats somewhat.
Batters who appear to be lucky/unlucky based on hit angle and speed
By this measure Matt Joyce has been the unluckiest hitter in baseball, but just looking at his BABIP (.176 this year vs. .278 career) might have told us the same thing.
Since all teams have analytics departments now, presumably there is a lot of proprietary work being done as well. But even that might not be truly revolutionary, as more and more data often gives diminishing returns.
The statcast data has led to bolder and bolder assertions from some in the community using smaller and smaller sample sizes. Sometimes it works out (i.e. everyone who wanted to sign Rich Hill based on 4 starts in 2015), sometimes it doesn’t. Overall, it makes me uneasy. While I’m sure major league franchises know how to parse those pitfalls better than the average Fangraphs user, I do not think of sabermetrics as a scientific pursuit anymore in the larger community.
How should I read that? Do you think Sabermetrics them/itself are failing as a scientific pursuit, or the people who use them/it on fangraphs, or a little of both?
Welcome! Perhaps you’re the start of a whole FKing Kavalcade!
stigmata if true
by
god’sonan’s wounds!Guh
Shoulder strain
FK
A perennial favorite for the coveted Anderson. Manaea is a solid bet as well and Gray has upped his chances lately.
I think to win the Anderson you have to have a range of injuries to different body parts, ideally with some of them caused by your own clumsiness. A crocked shoulder is just too mundane.
I think that award is actually a Harden.
On the subject of potential Andersons, Rich Hill is still on the Dodgers’ DL with a blister.
But Anderson himself has almost doubled his IP total from last year, while cutting his ERA nearly in half.
He pitched a third of an inning today and gave up five runs and counting before leaving with an “injury.”
Manaea felt pain during a flat ground sesh and couldn’t do a bullpen today. I don’t expect to see him for quite a while.
Argh. Hopefully he’ll at least use the extra time to grow out his SamoFro again.
Glad we have someone for the generic pitcher named Smith role filled by Chris in 2016 and Chad in 2015.
Joe is a free agent this winter.
Looking very much like a Juventus – Real Madrid final.
BBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Thanks, and go As.
Not at all! Juve’s defense vs. Ronaldo and crew will be fun. And this Dybala kid could really blow up.
I’m a soft Juve fan, though, so I may be biased.
Oh I have an insane mancrush on Gigi Buffon and I would love for him to win it all, and I do like Dybala as well.
I was just hoping Monaco could pull something together. Buncha young ass attackers from the French Ligue 1 is a fun time.
Atletico is just meh.
Honestly I just prefer Barca to Madrid because Messi is ridiculous and drags his team to greatness (funny to say with Neymar and Suarez), while IMO Ronaldo is great but the team around him is also absolutely amazing. They’ve got FKing James Rodriguez rotting on the bench FFS.
Basically, to me, Barca is great because of Messi. Ronaldo is great because of Madrid.
Thanks, and go As.
friendly advice, don’t get between GM and gigi. that’s like a fly between diamond plate and an electromagnet.
also, gigi has won it all before. ask that real coach.
i was sorta rooting for tevez’ juve against barça, so no doubt i’m all for them against real.
does monaco have the D for real? honest question. atletico was helpless the other day.
this is perfect:
you forgot messi sucks because of argentina. so i can’t wait for a dybala-messi dupla.
The Twins throw a lefty tonight. I’ll give Bob credit for trying anything, but having Phegley hit behind Khris portends doom.
PhK!
There has to be a KhBBPhGIDP tonight.
maybe strike?
It hurts to watch this team play baseball.
RESPECT KHRIS DAVIS!!!
That was not impressive knowledge of the opponent.
RALLY!
huh. vince seems surprised at rajai, like he didn’t read any of the fielding data saying rajai is a bad outfieldser
also, apparently we can ride confidence now
A run-scoring GIDP feels like such a win for TP.
that is what offense looks like!
misplayed double, single, GIDP
Would be sorta curious to know the order “responsibility” for the success of the 2012-2014 Athletics teams between Beane, Zaidi, and Forst. I’d like to think that Forst would rank last on that list. Begging the question to me at least, do you want him having a large role in the decision making for this franchise?
Interestingly, Zaidi’s wiki page cites Beane crediting him for the Cespedes signing.
There’s a reason why the Dodgers chose to poach Farhan instead of Forst.
Was it his affection for oft-injured pitchers?
let anderson walk
You know I’m starting to think we aren’t going to win the World Series this year.
PITCHERS DUEL!
dual pitchers might help
We know the A’s won’t do a lot offensively this year outside of home runs, so it’s on the pitching to make the games worth watching. And just when it seemed Gray and Graveman would be a feared one-two in the rotation, clunk.
i love major league debuts
Family travels on very short notice. 19 pitches, double, single, HBP. Thanks for coming!
and a popped up bunt
but he does have 1400 reasons today to be thankful
STILL NO ERA!
I know I can’t believe we haven’t gotten the Equal Rights Amendment through yet.
Nevada just ratified it a few weeks ago, so work continues.
Really?! That’s amazing.
I wasn’t kidding.
You know I’m starting to think we aren’t going to win the World Series this decade.
i am. i know it
To keep my interest the A’s are going to need to spice things up a bit…get a knuckleballer, or a flashy prospect, or start playing a chimp at short stop.
I have seen probably 90% of the innings so far this season, but after shoveling 20 feet of snow this winter it certainly didn’t escape me that today was the first 70-degree day since October. Priorities do shift as the weather warms.
I wanted to get back into baseball a bit but there’s now way this type of baseball will keep my interest. You must be really ready for summer after all that snow.
The team isn’t worth much of a commitment right now with all the veteran journeymen in the lineup. Barreto’s arrival will be the first thing that changes that, and one hopes others emerge out of the A’s system. Unfortunately, the only player the A’s might trade who would bring another interesting MLB-ready prospect would be Sonny Gray.
Nondescript seems to be the best way to describe this team.
So, I guess now we know what is rooted in Oakland…boredom.
“rooted.” past tense of rooting
you rang?
RALLY POPCORN EATING PUPPET!
live look in!
Don’t look at us! We’re hideous!
Typical teASe with thoroughly predictable ending.
Former Twin Trevor Plouffe coming up with bases loaded and one out.
“Could be a storybook ending” say Glen and Ray.
Yep.
Did anyone not know that was going to happen?
i actually forgot it was a possibility
He had been in something of a GIDP slump, but the pair tonight gives him 7, good for sole possession of 4th in MLB (Puig, Hosmer, Solarte) and on pace for 42.
hey, that means the A’s are getting on base in front of him
FUUUUUUCK. Fuckity fuck fuck fuckaloo.
(sorry if fuck isn’t allowed here but FUCK!
dmoas!
He must be my spirit brother.
Wait…are we back in the AN lounge or something?
I thought that was just a drug induced hallucination.
I’d like to think in my drug induced hallucinations the A’s would be better…and we’d all be naked.
Half of that is true!
i’m naked under my clothes
Saucy!
Pretty sure it’s mandatory here.
Thanks for the laugh GM. :)
I like to think all the loungers who no longer post are living together on a nice farm upstate.
hate to tell you its facebook. but i think gigs is in thailand or somethi8ng
Facebook? What’s that?
I’m in upstate California. And I watched the last half of the game with my ducks, chickens and cats. I missed the first half because I was at Ace getting fencing, potting soil, bricks, etc. So… you pegged me!
Outdoor Ace guy really seemed to hate me too. Maybe it was the 60 lbs. bags of sand.
Well, I genuinely hope life is treating you well…you seem to be surrounded by animals which I know makes you happy.
I always want that for you too luv! Yep, they do help.
But the Ace guy… I mean he glared at me. Didn’t answer my questions or respond to me at all unless I repeated myself. An old lady coming out of the store asked me if I was okay. I must have looked stressed or something.
I can just picture Aceman’s thoughts- That bitch. Buying bricks. Does she think she’s going to build a chimney? Effing heavy stuff buying bitch.
All you need to know about Ace is they once hired me and I’m a complete idiot when it comes to being handy so that guy was likely an moron.
I feel better already!
wait. aren’t you, like, the same person or something?
was that rude? um, quick distraction… quick distraction….
CRITTER, I GOT A CAT!
Cats are great!
Love, Bed
my ace burned down
I don’t know what the appropriate response to that is.
pretty much.
but hopefully not the same farm upstate my parents took my ailing, aging dog to when i was 6.
Maybe we’ll get to see Rosie catch tomorrow.
there are no flights out of austin right now?
It’s an early wake-up call but not a problem. And yes, there are seats available so no one has to be dragged off to make room.
an extra day of ML service time for getting up at 4? i don’t see a problem
So my baseball team sucks. I’m disgusted with my football team. My basketball team is run by idiots. My college football team has won 2 games in 17 years. My country is run by a fucking moron. But…and this is important…I still have fresh, minty breath.
Phil Collins still walks the earth and could release a comeback album any day.
He’s doing a concert in England next month…and yes, I thought about trying to find a way to go.
Saw this earlier and thought of you.
That’s pretty awesome.
At least your football team didn’t suddenly get good and then leave.
Vegas is going to be great…maybe all the foreclosed homes can come to the games. They can root for the rapist(allegedly), dog beater, and blind guy the team just brought in.
I don’t know whether to love-hate you or hate-love you.
With the Las Vegas Football Team I am closing in on love-hate-love-exhaustion otherwise know as Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland-Las Vegas. They’ve just stomped on my heart one too many times.
Why do you hate blind people?
I love blind people just not as offensive lineman…or drivers.
They’re born umpires though.
Seriously…GM…you’re the best.
they have limited other options
If Trumpcare becomes law it won’t matter because no matter what happens at least we don’t have a President who once had a private email server.
Comey gave testimony today and when I turned it on a Republican senator was grilling him on why he wasn’t indicting Huma Abedin for forwarding emails to her home computer. It’s unbelievable.
Those fuckers will never let it go…I really don’t understand what the hell is going on right now.
Meanwhile the testimony Comey gave on Huma and the emails in order to justify his October letter was false and Comey hasn’t corrected it!
Once he is done with whatever Trump investigation he is supposedly doing, Comey needs to be put out to pasture.
Heh
I’m not one of the good people so I deserve what I get! Or don’t get.
being a woman is a pre existing condition
I’d like to think all the lower income white folks who vote Republican will wake up and see that all these guys care about is tax cuts for rich people but I’m not going to hold my breath. My empathy is starting to fade for these folks. The only thing that might save us is Trump and his people are dumber than a box of rocks.
If the only thing that can save us is Trump, that literally means nothing can save us.
I was actually in a good mood before I watched this game and now I’m getting all sour about stuff…Thanks Oakland A’s.
The good news is my ducks felt relaxed enough with me outside watching the game that they took naps.
You should be one of my ducks.
I’d like to be my dog…he does nothing..eats and sleeps all day…and spends more time in my wife’s lap than I do.
So if people are willing to pay more for “cage free” eggs could I get rich from my flock? They have nightlights, beds, ducks get fresh towels for their bed, free run during the day and a nightly treat when I tuck them into their houses. I missed most of the last pineapple because I had to save it for them..
define “rich”
$5?
I spent almost a hundred dollars at Ace today. That is going to make for a rough time. But it was all for either the animals or the gardens which are for me and the animals.
But not for the jaybirds. One watched me when I was planting corn. Today I saw one fly out from the “corn” patch. No corn plants have come up. Geez, I give them peanuts and would share an ear of corn.
Now I have to go to Safeway. I think my list will have to be shortened.
We planted vegetables and fruit trees in our urban garden and the gophers and birds and raccoons and god knows what else have eaten all of the apricots and broccoli and kale down to the nubs. The little apple and cherry buds are now wrapped in industrial netting. The critters are going to have to fight me for those cherries.
That’s true. I will fight you for cherries.
The next Presidential debates should include a basic civics test…that will make Trumparoni a one termer.
Except Real Americans would like him more for failing a “fake news” test. And not at all just because he’s an idiot.
Okay, we didn’t win but everyone is still getting apple slices…it was great talking with you, duck wrangler…I hope you come around again real soon…oh, and Ed was here as well.
i made apple slices tonight.
want me to post the recipe?
Only if it comes with a video tutorial on how to slice apples.
Have you seen the ice one?
I’ll wait for the reaction video.
I will chop the apple slices more so my chicas and ducks can eat them.
And I love Ed, but please don’t tell him. He might get a swole head.
What’s not to love?
well, there is that rash that doesn’t seem to be going away
He’s not in the lineup today, unable to add to his glorious return to the Twin Cities which has featured 0-for-8 with one walk and two GIDP.
With neither team’s RSN televising today, MLB Network is showing the Target Field in-house production with the Twins radio broadcast.
Catcher triple!
Buxton’s having a rough one.
Thank goodness for Kyle Gibson.
And this is the consequence of stinking it up against this A’s lineup:
This would have been the perfect day for me to watch the A’s on NBCSports app while pretending to work at mt desk. Alas.
Perfect
The analogy carries.
I thought last night’s episode of Fargo was one of the very best serial drama TV episodes I have ever seen.
Dan’s tales of hanging out with MC Hammer and his entourage in the parking lot of the Hegenberger Hyatt House could take some interesting turns.
I’ve been trying to figure out what Dan this is about and I’m coming up empty.
Dan Gladden, one of the Twins radio broadcasters. Their broadcast was the audio on MLB Network. The inning ended as he was getting into the story and they never got back to it.
Fresno native Dan Gladden, that is. When I lived in MN one of my colleagues was so enamored of him that she actually went to Fresno on vacation.
Someone please tagline this.
Done!
“And if you will direct your attention out the right side of the bus, the parking lot in front of Dollar General was the site of the A&W Drive In where Dan’s parents took him for his first Baby Burger and frosty mug of root beer in 1960.”
It’s a dollar tree and it’s next to the Food Maxx, but other than that spot on.
Gladden was a minor hero in both the Twins’ World Series. But in looking this up, I discovered that my friend Pearl was deceived; he went to Fresno State but he was actually born in San Jose.
Approaching 100 pitches and Jharel delivers a 1-2-3 sixth inning, including two Ks. Yay!
This motherFKer
My rep voted for it too. Thinking about driving out to his district office after work with some signs.
My guy, Amodei, was a No had they voted the first time but flipped to Yes this time. Heller is somebody you’d ordinarily expect to go along, but he’s up for reelection in 2018 in a swing state that went for Hillary. The Senate is going to have to water it down a lot to get him on board and that brings the Freedom Caucus back into play. Short summary of where Nevada stands.
Even if the plan is to eventually get a “compromise” bill through via reconciliation, doesn’t the initial Senate bill still have to get eight Dem votes (plus all the wary Republicans like Heller and Collins) to get past the filibuster? Maybe they can get Manchin and Heitkamp (even that seems doubtful), but not anyone else. What is their plan? They (McConnell) just said they wouldn’t kill the filibuster.
They are planning to use reconciliation, so they only need 50+ Pence. That restricts what the bill can do, and the timing of passage, but I don’t really understand all of the parliamentary issues at play.
I thought there had to be some underlying already-passed bill that they were reconciling. But now that I think about it, the Dems did the same thing with the original ACA, so I guess not.
You put a provision in a spending bill that’s broad enough.
The real limit is you have to be deficit neutral after a decade.
At face value, I think that the House bill contains a whole bunch of stuff that shouldn’t be allowed in a reconciliation bill, so that stuff would have to go if they want to pass it with 50 votes in the Senate. But the wild card is that this is all just Senate parliamentary procedure. From what I’ve read, the Senate parliamentarian makes a ruling on whether it is a valid reconciliation bill but that ruling is merely offered as *advice* to the president of the Senate (Mike FKing Pence)… which makes it sound like they could pass anything they want, as long as they aren’t too frightened of the political fallout.
Yeah, Sen Portman in Ohio has already said publicly that he won’t accept the Medicaid cuts in the current draft. I’m still worried that McConnell comes up with some less-shitty-but-still-really-shitty bill that passes the Senate and then the House Freedom Caucus declines to blow it up.
That’s pretty much what I expect to happen.
Republican “moderates” in the House got rolled. I expect the same to happen to the moderate Republican senators. They have spent so long demonizing ACA that they actually think it is less politically painful to take away health insurance from millions (and kill tens of thousands) than it would be to get the blame for failing to repeal Obamacare.
Are they wrong?
May depend on whether the political pain they are worried about is electoral (i.e. facing a primary from the right vs. a motivated center-left in the general) or personal (being blackballed by mega conservative donors and shut out of post-Congress sinecures).
Heller has to eventually vote Yes on some sort of repeal or he will lose next November by virtue of some of his many conservative supporters being PO’d enough to vote for NOTA instead of him. NOTA got 3.81% in 2016, which was greater than the 2.43% margin of victory.
Any chance someone like Amodei would take him on in a primary if he votes no?
Seems to me that Heller is basically screwed either way provided the Democrats can find a halfway credible candidate and Harry Reid still has his faculties.
I’m sure there would be a push for it from the right. A logical candidate from that direction would be the AG, Adam Laxalt, who brings the family brand name recognition no Democrat will have. I think Laxalt’s current plan is to run for governor but that could change.
A decent sign that you shouldn’t have swung at a pitch is when it ends up in the stands.
Healy was ranting all the way back to the dugout there and was deservedly tossed. Definitely a borderline pitch.
Gameday had it both up and in. MLB Network’s box had it just bending into the zone. I think I’m with gameday.
Montas is not ready for primetime.
Bill would probably think this was tacky but I love it.
I’m only on board with this only if it is used judiciously, for only the biggest of big plays. While “Holy Toledo” became known as Bill’s catch phrase, he was always sparing in its use. One of my least favorite things about modern announcing is the way so many of them so obviously try to get known for a catch phrase and use it at every inconsequential turn.
I doubt judicious use will be the practice, though, stadiums suck at that.
I can remember sitting in the Coliseum speculating on whether certain plays got a Holy Toledo and then listening to the wrap up on the way home to find out. It was a significant honor to get one.
In addition to the almost-certain excessive use, my kneejerk reaction is that it adds to the perpetual audio-visual assault. Though, with the practice of taking all the baseball information off the ribbon boards between pitches so they can flash crap like MAKE NOISE in loud colors, this doesn’t sound like it will add that much extra.
Yup.
Jairo just might gag this one up.
He has no idea where the ball is going right now.
he hit the bull?
Twice
Throw strikes asshole.
Just what I want to see (or not see, in this case) – Sano up with the bases loaded against Jairo with a three-run lead.
Heads up in the centerfield restaurant.
w00t
I’m glad EM got a win. I know that feeling of waking up on the last morning of a road trip with a zero in the win column.
The A’s are on a nice win 3 out of every 7 games pace. If my math is correct this should get them to 179 wins.
Are you angling for a job working for Paul Ryan?
… in a little over two and a half seasons.
Who the FK makes mugs that can’t be put in a microwave or a dishwasher?
MLB, that’s who.
Today in misguided attempts to excuse one’s bad acts by wrapping them in the Constitution
Old and busted: Claiming you have a First Amendment right to avoid consequences for being a racist asshole
New hotness: Claiming your racist customers have a Sixth Amendment right to harass people who complain to you about their racism
KOZINSKI, Circuit Judge, ruminating
per curium rumination
andeux or other math savants, would love to get your opinion on this “AI swarm” method of predicting the Kentucky Derby, as described here:
https://www.cnet.com/news/kentucky-derby-winner-superfecta-prediction-churchill-downs-unanimous-ai-swarm/
On one hand, successfully predicting the Superfecta last year is surely impressive. OTOH, it was quite chalky, as are it’s predicted finishers this year, so I wonder if the method merely tends to amplify conventional wisdom.
After admitting that I don’t really know anything about this method, I’ll say that it doesn’t sound like artificial intelligence at all. It’s just some complicated, possibly unpredictable method for averaging the opinions of a bunch of people, right?
Yeah, AI seems a misnomer here. Though the decision- making model to resemble “swarm” group decisions is interesting.
From the description, it doesn’t sound like it is really AI, but more a wisdom of (expert) crowds type of algorithm. So I suspect your last sentence is spot on. [Edit: or, what colin said]
Thinking about it a little more: my sense is that horse betting (like a lot of gambling, but even more so) is not really about divining a single outcome, but about assigning probabilities to all the possible outcomes and betting the ones where your estimate of the probable pay-off is larger than what is implied by the odds. So if a horse goes off at 2:1, you will bet it if you think it will win 50% of the time, but not if you think it will win only 25% of the time even if that still makes it the most likely winner. Likewise, you would bet a 20:1 horse that you think will win 10% of the time – you expect to lose most individual bets like that, but in the long run (if your estimates are right) you will come out ahead. I’m not sure there is a lot of real value in an algorithm (whether AI or human-based) that just picks a single most-likely winner, without assigning a probability, unless of course the winner it picks is a long-shot, which (per the first point) does not seem to be the case here.
Thanks! For the bettor (at least for this bettor) the best use of this data is probability of hitting the board, relative to the odds. So Hence, given a 35% chance of a top 4 finish, looks quite appealing at the 15-1 morning line price. Unfortunately Hence is getting buzz as the “Wise Guy” pick, so I expect those odds will drop.
thank you, vlad or whoever.
State media watch
happy birthday ptbnl
Thanks Future Ed!
how come you can use my real name?
Fixed.
phew. don’t want to be outed
Happy birthday from me also, I’ll celebrate for you from the Front Row Seats.
In the misery loves company category, James Paxton just went on the DL with a forearm strain, and Cole Hamels is already there with an oblique strain.
We can still totally finish third you guys.