Ceetar

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yeah. I try to time it because I know where they are and how it all works, even only going a few times a year now. We'll see this year though, the older one is 'meh', but the little one has asked to go again. I'm thinking about bribing the older one with 'hey, let's just go after school, you and me, stay up late ,etc.'. If I have to go to the bathroom anyway I'll go the extra 100 feet to where the good beer is. (the bathroom, being a corner, on LF field level is sometimes much less crowded anyway) If i'm wandering around visiting people or taking in the stadium 'cause I haven't been in a while, I make sure to hit that spot last before back to my seat, etc.

Lefty Specialist wrote: I'm guessing every stadium will be upping their craft-beer game in 2020. It's too profitable not to. I've been paying explicit attention to this sine 2009, specifically Citi Field, and I kinda doubt it. The 3-tier system and random crazy archaic laws make some of it tough to navigate and often it's offloaded to "just let Aramark deal with it" which lends itself to just taking whatever big 'deal' the big companies give you. Citi Field does do a good job getting a reasonable selection of beers in there (but no dark beers, no real variety) but it's geared to me, to people that will seek out craft. They've gotten better at disseminating some of it around the park (Think about a grocery store that previously used to only be able to sell beer in a specific spot, or separate building, etc, and now they can slide some of it next to the limes in the grocery section) but for the most part, if you're just a guy that likes beer and don't think too much about it, you're probably going to end up with a Blue Point lager or a Goose Island IPA before you stumble upon the independent stuff. There are reasons for this of course, independent breweries can't produce enough to fill an entire stadium by themselves in most cases. Plus Anheuser-Busch specifically eliminates them from certain areas, and teams cave because $$$.

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I don't have an Athletic subscription so I can't read it. I believe my brief summation would've been "Much like the team, the beer is good, it's around, but it could be better and it seems a bit improvised"

wrong again

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I have to think that the Houston pitchers knew what was going on. I wonder what they thought? They all must have known that they could one day be pitching to the Astros. literally Mike Fiers on top of that, i think it was the WSJ article on it, the As (which Fiers pitched for after) were one of the teams mentioned that didn't bother to change their signs and just let the Astros have them.

I think there are spots open in Ottoneu. It's the only CPF league I think.

It's become very obvious which 'side' of this you're supposed to be on. If MLB does decide to investigate further, there's going to be a lot of egg. I can't read it, but today I saw a blurb from the Athletic that finally talked about the pitchers and switching up sign and such, and how stupid the mound visit thing was in response to pitchers and catchers maybe having to work a little harder to change up/remember signs.

of course Lowrie is actively on the field doing stuff, Diaz has been working with Pedro Martinez and his pitches do in fact still actually look good, and Cano out-hit Alonso in the second half last year. so lots of story still to be written.

The point is that something that's 100% preventable by the 'victim' makes it real hard for me to feel like they got the short straw or something. Especially given how facilitated it was by MLB. It'd be like if they put the steroids in the clubhouse unmonitored with a big sign that says don't take these if you don't have an exemption for them.

It's shocking to me that anyone could still think they installed special cameras after all this. I know most of this is filtered through absolutely pathetic 'reporting' by supposed 'journalists' but it's just not true.

Alex is mostly a phony but it IS intelligent about baseball at a level higher than most people, most players even, and I generally welcome that intelligence in any capacity. It's part of the reason I liked Beltran.

Where does it say anywhere that there were cameras no one else had access to? There are a zillion ways to encode a sign, even under the circumstances. So many in fact, that the reports say the Astros stopped because other teams had caught on and were doing just that!

Frayed Knot wrote: The other team could change their signs all they wanted but the thing about real-time video is that you can then pick up the new ones in no time flat. Stealing signs isn't the crime here, if you can naked eye your way into their code then matzoh tov. The illegal part is the installation of an electronic spy system which gives the home team a Yuge advantage over the road dudes in deciphering what the other side is planning. nobody installed an electric spy system. They stole signs on the road too, it just wasn't always as easy to communicate it because they couldn't control where the replay room was. And if you can pick up the new ones in no time flat they weren't particularly encoded were they?

I kinda want someone to be all "I don't know why they didn't just change their signs." shrug and walk away.

It'd be amusing to see the Mets go from a manager that should go into the Hall of Fame with the team, to an owner.

Sure they do. Right here contains all the value players gain from 'bulletin board material' https://www.fangraphs.com/rightherehttps://www.fangraphs.com/righthere

They* built a 57 million dollar facility, including a locker room with the exact same lockers and chairs in them for the PSL Mets. Let's not pretend that those guys aren't much better off, facility wise, than they were last year. But this is also elitist nonsense. When they have guys rehabbing in Single A games, is like, Jed Lowrie gonna dress by himself in the big clubhouse while the rest of the team is in the other not quite as nice but still really nice clubhouse?

"2 good half-seasons". Yeesh. I'm sure that Wheeler will remember that when he pitches against the Mets. He was just going to serve up meatballs to them, but NOW

If you don't think Wheeler's agent knew exactly what the Mets were or weren't going to offer him, you're deluded. Breaking: New player on rival bashes old team. I bet the Phillies fans like the comments, and that's who this was for. I get that position players haven't reported officially yet, but the #MetsBeat has given us roughly zero real info about Cespedes or Lowrie or their plans, but will happily file a dozen posts about Phillies or the 2017 Astros.

This is just that smalltalk stuff I try to avoid. Whatever, new Philly knocks Mets in a mostly vague way. Whatever. And like, of course Mets fans are going to 'how dare you' that's what we do! It's a sport! They'/He's the enemy! This isn't about "logical debate about who's actually right and what the truth is." I still remember Wheeler was one of those that was whiny about the shift. Maybe he was convinced/came around but the "Certain people would want something" comment made me think of that.

I'm super pro technology, I'd go all in on that sorta stuff. Make the bases light up green/red for safe/out, same with fair/foul poles. Have the ball/strike count on top of home plate. People complain about the 'fractionally coming off the bag' stuff, well this would mostly eliminate the 'judgement call' type stuff. The "Is the ball actually in the back of the first baseman's glove", "Did it kick up a little chalk" "Did he just graze a loose piece of uniform on the tag" Some of it wouldn't register, like you might have technically touched the base with the very tip of one cleat point before the ball hit the glove, but it wasn't quite enough to register. But it'd hopefully be pretty uniform and smooth.

I would like a 'ping them!' button that an umpire can press immediately so that the replay guys can load up all the videos already and perhaps start looking depending on work load, for those 20 seconds while we wait for the challenge. Especially in the playoffs where they should be reviewing every play.