- Interesting analysis of the leaked MLB financials. And another.
- Not-promising outlook on Cust for 2011
- Neat A’s ballpark renderings. ML lets his pro-SJ side show at the end after making a token gesture to Oakland boosters at the beginning.
- Boy, and you thought our lineup was bad …
- Well, there’s an accusation I hadn’t seen before (second primary comment)
- Euphemism watch: getting kicked in the face by the mayor of Winnipeg, visiting the Slinky factory
- This looks really good. Brad Anderson is a very smart and skillful dude.
The Grill (and Game Thread) that’s actually (mostly) about baseball 66
66 thoughts on “The Grill (and Game Thread) that’s actually (mostly) about baseball”
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With so many teams leaked, seems like it should be a pretty narrow list of potential leakers.
2: I don’t think his power is gone.
I don’t either, but his ISO sez otherwise.
I still think the A’s have been screwing with his plate approach.
Not just the A’s:
Just think how awesome Ted Williams would have been if he’d swung at more bad pitches!
For what it’s worth, Dunn is in fact walking (a lot) less and swinging at (a lot) more pitches outside the strike zone this year.
But we need him because HOMERZ
Don’t ever take hitting advice from an Eckstein.
I don’t understand baseball’s obsession with being “aggressive” and “swinging moar” when it’s clear that some guys are good because they swing less. Is it the machismo that “being aggressive” connotes? Or is it baseball’s own acknowledgment that it is a slow and boring game and patient hitters just make it worse?
Maybe partly those things. Maybe also partly
1. The appeal of sacrifice – that is, adapting, even undermining, your own (“selfish”) approach for the good of the team. There is cache in ostentatious selflessness, irrespective of whether that selflessness is rational or productive (or actually selfless, for that matter).
2. Once you learn something, however wrong it may be, you’re not likely to unlearn it. (political parties know, for example, that if you get them young, you’ll have them forever)
3. Stat people are regularly accused of overcomplication, but it is often the case that managers and pundits and Regular Dudes are the ones doing the overcomplicating, by layering personality based irrelevancies over the top of structural truths or simple coincidence, or by expounding an elaborate interplay between observed “nuance” and shifts in performance or unexpected outcomes, or, as in this case, by insinuating the hallowed, mystical situational adaptation matrix into circumstances that do not call for it, which is to say most circumstances.
Managers are cast in the role of expert, so they have to at least occasionally demonstrate expertise. Because they either lack genuine expertise or possess it but are inarticulate, more often than not these demonstrations come couched in all that old-saw overcomplication.
4. People are definitely biased in favor of action.
5. I have to admit that as I’ve learned more about the game, and shed many of my misconceptions, I have come to enjoy it somewhat less. It is much more difficult to achieve optimism now, for example, as there is always a “but” I didn’t know about five years ago. I have a theory, which I may operationalize next season, that if I stopped following the “smart discussion” I’d have a better time. Of course, I don’t like the dumb discussion either, so clearly this theory is still in its gestational phase. That is all to say that while I make fun of the same delusions we all make fun of, I also sympathize with the deluded.
five. Watch baseball, discuss other things.
Add to rotating FK motto gallery: “We also sympathize with the deluded”
I am astonished and not a little disappointed that you failed to capitalize on my usage error by making some sort of cash/cache/cachet joke. You need to drink more coffee or something.
Glibertarians are glib: one, two
Also: what would happen if a glibertarian were ever questioned by the po-po?
Re one: JC rebuts.
And then some.
FKatherhood bleg: anyone got any experience with Vincent shoes?
Did you just throw out a link for baby shoes?
This URL was never meant for one as beautiful as you.
re 4: Jai Miller! He was the guy that Oakland picked up on waivers and then dropped after he went 4/34 with 19 strikeouts in Sacramento. He’s actually hit OK for KC’s AAA team, though.
We need LOLcats of Jai Miller doing…I dunno, something…with the caption “O JAI”
6. picking up “Mr Tung” in China
re 4: WFB hits the go-ahead homer in the top of the 12th.
bwahaha
sweet dp from that game
Damon slides like he throws.
And just like that the Jeff Larish Era draws to a close.
The A’s basically sent down Travis Buck to give Gabe Gross more at bats over the next month and a half. Yet another proud moment for this management.
man, larry sutton lasted longer with the a’s.
He’s still here, just not in the lineup. Larish, that is. I have no idea where, or for that matter who, Larry Sutton is.
He hit one of my favorite homers.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK200205220.shtml
this was right after little g was run out of town and the a’s were unrecognizable for a moment.
I didn’t know until I read the sportspage over lunch today that Roy Oswalt played some left field for the Phillies yesterday, and made a putout.
Out, Walk, HBP, Single, Walk, Single, Double…five runs and counting!
Yeah, right.
Let’s hear it for
Geren’s astute personnel management in giving Kz a night off to think about how poorly he’d been playing from a vantage point on the benchMediocre Mitch Talbot!Cleveland sucks.
OTOH, the weather is apparently more pleasant there today than it has been here in Oakland. I bet there aren’t more than five days a year when that can be said, if that.
Colorado comes back from 10-1 deficit to beat Atlanta 12-10.
San Francisco comes back from 10-1 deficit to lead Cincinnati 11-10. Now 11-11 in the 11th.
Which is the more unlikely development, either of those games or the KC lineup winning?
Zito now pitching in relief.
And giving up the go-ahead run.
Suddenly the A’s 5-0 lead feels flimsy.
Fortunately, Trevor Crowe is in hot pursuit of the single series LOB record.
TWKMS
That’s just one of those mysteries that we may never be able to answer.
It can only be explained by quantum physics: the eternal subatomic dance of the gay force and the anti-gay force.
He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican
opponents of Islamic jihads, which he called “the greatest anti-gay force in theworldUSA right now.â€That inning right there (heck, this game) would be a good argument for Cahill being lucky.
The flip side of dropout factories.
If I had the time, I’d rewrite that as letters from teachers at Andover and Yale in the ’60s.
The show-up-for-grade story is shocking.
A’s pitchers K eight of last nine Cleveland batters to finish the game. I’m starting to feel good about next year’s bullpen. Of course, we all felt that way last fall also.
Henry was really dealing. Just filthy. And the A’s rotation even got a mention from Sutcliffe during the Rangers-Twins game.
Without spoiling much, lemme just say that I like all five remaining chefs, but Ed, having outed himself as a Red Sox fan, is dead to me.
Strange, I thought the same thing. Surely Angelo’s a Yankees fan. I do not like him. The other four are fine.
1. Angelo is in everyone’s head. At this point he could start giving people good advice, and some of them would do exactly the opposite.
2. More generally, this seems like an especially catty bunch.
3. Was it really a good idea to leave Ed and Tiffany alone in the stew room?
4. I was pretty surprised by the final decision. It seems like they chose to punish what was mostly a cosmetic error instead of other dishes that tasted worse. Maybe complexity also entered into it, or maybe it was just the editing.
4b. Having now read the judges’ blogs, I retract 4.
5. Brilliant editing near the beginning when Amanda mentioned that Angelo read Tony Robbins books and then they cut to Angelo looking deeply ashamed.
6. Ball park food needs moar kraut.
Yeah, I loved Ripert’s comment that it could’ve killed him.
Haven’t read the judge’s blogs (I need to get in the habit of doing that), but serving raw fish that looks like it’s gone bad, whether or not it actually has, seems like a pretty unforgiveable offense. And choosing to serve raw fish at a ballpark is just dumb.
Yeah, Kevin’s critique seemed right on wrt the tartar. It’s a baseball game (but not really a baseball game–no game was being played…). Tartar might not be the best choice.
Bull!
It’s made from coal tartar.
Who was that guy who made that comment? Sure haven’t seen him around in a while.
Some nerd.
from Tom’s blog:
Uh, yes I can…you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting that shameless attention whore.
Christ, what an asshole.
Also, I think I’m on the dole, FK.
Revenue sharing: it’s not just for multi-millionaires anymore!
I thought monkeyball was on the Dole.