roger_that

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: so can confirm he like hearing from fans. Post the number your friend dialled, and we might test how many of his fans he likes hearing from.

I find it irresistible in tennis, particularly in the phrase "straight sets." Billie Jean King lost to Martina Navratilova in straight sex. Yeah, but Billie Jean beats her at gay sex all the time--like that. It's a bad habit, I know, but I can't seem to break it.

I think Shamsky and Rickey would feel honored.

(seriously) the possibility that it leads to overconfidence. We assume the Mets feel great about the comeback win, are bubbling over with "We can accomplish anything" vibes, but I wonder if that's not wishful thinking. No, stop. Listen to me for a second. I'm not just being negative here. Forget about the game in Philly, okay? I'm talking about larger issues here. We always think "confidence" is good, and it is. But I've experienced (personally) bad things that happen as a result of over-confidence. It can lead to complacency. Not-panicking is great, being cool is necessary, but mild panic, a heightening of the nerves, an edginess can be valuable too, and you don't want to be too cool when your back is up against the wall, either. Having the best record in MLB is a fantastic feeling, a rush, a natural high, but there's something to be said for being in a tight race, that it keeps you on your toes. Having a big lead early on sometimes makes you think it's okay to skip BP, to stay out late drinking, to ignore coaches' suggestions for improving your game. "Hey, man, get off my case--we're in first place, aren't we?" Being in first place, with a big lead, can go along with not correctlng your errors, your foolish choices, the mistakes you've gotten away with making so far. Every screw up I've ever made derived from feeling too big for my britches. Just saying.

Willets Point wrote: others got into endless bickering and arguing. Wait, that's not the primary function of the Crane Pool Forum? I've been doing this all wrong? That Vic Sage character seems both an argumentative and a cool guy.

=kcmets post_id=88492 time=1649275096 user_id=53] Foster's middle name was Arthur.

There's a chance that foul double nicked the bag. It seemed to change trajectory around that point, and that may explain the call.

Is it too old-school to cry "Hit 'em where they ain't!"?

No one's happier than I am--I hated Cano as a Yankee, as a Mariner, as a Met--but devil's advocate that I am, why not send Jankowski down now? Does he not have options? Is there some other reason this particular bullet had to be bitten today?

Where do those of us who pitched a fit at signing a Yankees castoff in the first place go to gloat and scream "I told yuz so!"? Asking for myself.

Edgy MD wrote: Look't McNevill bumped up to the top of the lineup and Smarte way down. How it oughta be.

Yes, those are instances where bunting certainly worked out.

Are these good bunts? 47K views · 647 reactions | What are the hardest hit bunts of... WWW.FACEBOOK.COM What are the hardest hit bunts of all-time? Stats that exist but do not matter! 47K views · 647 reactions | What are the hardest hit bunts of... WWW.FACEBOOK.COM What are the hardest hit bunts of all-time? Stats that exist but do not matter!

Do they still even use penicillin these days? I'm supposedly allergic to it and have no memory of how or why I was told that at a very young age. Same. I tried climbing a phone pole when I was six, got a huge splinter under my middle finger (still have the scar) so I saw the doctor, supposedly, and got a penicillin shot that gave me a bad reaction, and I've been telling people for the past half-century "Penicillin" when they as about allergies, though I don't remember any of this, just a story (and as scar) I've been told about. "What was the bad reaction, exactly?" "I was six, and out of my kug with fever, probably, how the hell would I know?"

Not sure I agree on the football thing. What could be MORE "macho" than 4th and 1 lining up and saying "we are bigger and stronger than you and running this shit down your throat" "Macho" might not be the most precise term. I meant it in the sense of "being one of the boys" or "not looking like a weirdo." The term "sissy" comes up in Gladwell's explanation of why Wilt Chamberlain refused to shoot his free-throws underhand. He started out shooting free throws very poorly--40% or something like that. Then he switched to underhand, and he became pretty good at it. The season or two he shot underhand, he improved to over 60%. In his famous 100-point game against the Knicks, Gladwell, points out, he actually set the NBA record for most free throws in a game, 28. And he attempted only 32--pretty good shooting, no? But he soon gave it up, and went back to shooting in the 40% range. Gladwell estimates that this decision cost him up to ten points in some games. And what was Wilt's explanation? "I didn't like looking like a sissy."

And a phenomenon as infrequent as the IBB, whose success rate is hard to quantify, might persist for decades. After all, if it costs you games, if it's colossally counter-productive, how many games a year could it possibly cost you? One? Maybe two? And that's after weighing in the number of runs it gains for you. Another factor in its favor is the inequality of runs. A defender of the IBB can argue that sometimes big innings don't matter, as in situations where the goal is to prevent ANY runs from scoring, since even one run reduces your chance sharply of winning that game. Say, a tie game, bottom of the ninth, men on second and third, one out, and the other team's big guy is up. That's an obvious IBB call, in that it sets up the DP, eliminates the big guy's bat, but MOST OF ALL, the big guy now on first doesn't matter. One run loses the game so that's all you need to prevent. But if the next batter hits a grand slam, on the books it would seem that the IBB cost you four runs--but you don't care if it's four runs or one run. So not all runs are equal, which makes it even harder to quantify. But still the IBB may be a net loser.

Frayed Knot wrote: their otherwise conservative mindset such as where punting on 4th-and-inches doesn't always seem to be the first and only option. Two-point attempts, except in those cases where your the situation dictates that your team is forced into them, still appears to be the equivalent of touching the third rail for coaches but maybe that too will start to move, even if only at the speed of plate tectonics. Dunno if you've heard that Gladwell podcast I linked to above, but going for it on 4th down is one of his examples. Essentially, to boil a complex speculation down to a few words, it's a matter of macho, of being one of the "knowledgable" ones, in doing things like they've always been done--and in some cases, it's demonstrably counter-productive. That's what sabermetrics has given us: ways to exploit market inequities. If you can find something that makes no sense, but is widely followed, then you can advance your fortunes by NOT following them, at the considerable risk of being made fun of, mocked, derided, especially if it doesn't have an immediate positive result. The example in MONEYBALL is famous, of course: sabermetrics show that OBP is the single most important offensive stat there is, yet teams cut, send down to the minors, bench, platoon all sorts of OPB wizards, who can be picked up for very cheap sometime, especially if you're willing to swap a low-OBP, high-BA "star" in exchange for them. Baseball players being what they are, sometimes this will backfire: the high-OBP star costs you a few games, say, with his lousy glove, or lack of power, and you look like an idiot for making a bad deal. Which is why GMs are unwilling to buck the system. But it's inherent to the idea of systems that something in them is inefficient, and can be exploited to your advantage.

Like to see those first four slots the way they are today. Should start with that 1-4 every day, in my opinion. Maybe with McNeil #2, and Marte #5, though.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Coach little league and you'll learn pretty quick how important preparation and anticipation is in baseball I have. I found it's important to prioritize, as eight-year-olds can only learn one thing at a time to look out for, and they all learn at different paces.

Frayed Knot wrote: But the "manager only has a few moments to make the call" is both true and, in Gladwell's larger sense, completely false. In his sense, managers have had over a century to come up with the answer and they (may have) come up with the wrong one. Except that each situation is different so neither the 'Always IBB in that case' or 'Never IBB' is the correct call. One may be the better option today but the other tomorrow based on a whole host of factors. The Bill James-led statistical revolution correctly pointed out the poor results from the near-automatic use of the man-on-1st/no-out Sac Bunt that was in vogue for most of the 20th century but that's not the same as advocating it be scrapped forever. As related by Gary last night, Buck cited the speed on O'Neil hitting behind Goldschmidt (reducing GiDP odds) and moving one batter closer to Arenado as his primary reasons for Not walking Goldschmidt intentionally. And, as we all know, they pitched to him carefully and walked him anyway. I'm not saying anything so absolute as "Never" or "Always." What I am saying is that, maybe, the IBB is called for ten times, or a hundred times, more than it should be. What I'm saying is that in 100 "IBB?" situations, if you go for the IBB all 100, 200 runs will score in that inning from that point forward, and if you go for it 0 times, 75 runs will score from that point forward, so you need to be FAR more selective than managers have been. But managers are reluctant to look at the overall numbers, because 1) tradition and 2) if you buck the odds, the blame attaches to you. "Why didn't you walk him? With men on second and third, he hit a 3-run HR and won the game" makes you look stupid, whereas if you'd put him on first and they ended up scoring 10 runs in that inning, it's still defensible. What I suspect is that managers issue IBBs for many different reasons: to gain a platoon advantage to avoid a powerful hitter to force the other manager to pinchhit for the guy batting after the IBB to set up the DP and that all four, or at least three, need to apply, to reach the breakeven point, but managers go for the IBB if only one or two apply. Also other factors: late in the game, with a very small lead, or none at all, or at home/on the road. There might be ten factors, and nine of them are needed for the IBB to make sense. Food for thought anyway. This might be an example of an exploitable strategic inequity.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Gallegos musta figured base hit off the bat contributing to the slow response No excuse, really. What, was he doing something more important than running his ass off to 1B at that moment? Of course not. I'm just trying to ascribe some motive for his laziness. I would be surprised if he'd have lollygagged against a more tradional first-baseman-off-tge-bag kinda play Okay, noted. But this is strangely the same issue that Edgy MD just raised with me, that of a lack of time to make the wisest choice. It's often unnoted how vital split-second thinking is to sports in general. We never think of this as an athletic quality, but so many games depend on instantaneous thinking rather than strength, or speed, or physical agility, and it's certainly much harder to notice, as a fan. We say "Wow what a great throw to third base from the right-field corner" but we don't say, "In addition to the strength and accuracy of his throwing arm, how the hell did he figure out which base to throw to in the quarter-second between catching the ball and fishing it out of his mitt?"

Edgy MD wrote: I'm delighted that Grimm noticed that Arrenado's walk was listed as a disadvantage to his team. But staying up all night talking about it is one thing. The manager only has a few moments to make the call. Definitely interesting to have Arenado's walk so noted. But the "manager only has a few moments to make the call" is both true and, in Gladwell's larger sense, completely false. In his sense, managers have had over a century to come up with the answer and they (may have) come up with the wrong one. I'm just speculating here, because he never addressed this particular issue of IBB, but if you take the half hour to listen to that episode, it's amazing the things that very smart people in sports do all the time that are completely contrary to their own aims, and IBB may be among them. Wilt Chamberlain, for example, may have won several more championships, and certainly many more games, if he had been willing to do one small thing to improve his game, and NFL teams may be managing their draft picks all wrong. But they persist in doing so, not because they're dumb, but because that's how they've always done it. Anyway, I don't mean to hijack this thread so maybe it's best to raise it elsewhere, and discuss the larger issue on its own merits, or lack thereof.

Johnny Lunchbucket wrote: Gallegos musta figured base hit off the bat contributing to the slow response No excuse, really. What, was he doing something more important than running his ass off to 1B at that moment?

Malcolm Gladwell has a great podcast episode on the dumb stuff sports teams do systematically and reflexively that studies have proven are counter-productive. The IBB may be one of those. There are those who simply counsel "Never* IBB anyone ever cuz more times than not it bites you on your ass." That is, the number of runs that result after IBBs is much greater than the number of runs if you pitch to guys in IBB situations. Gladwell doesn't use it as an example, but his NFL and NBA examples of dumb persistent counterproductive policy decisions are wonderful: https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/the-big-man-cant-shoot/https://www.pushkin.fm/episode/the-big-man-cant-shoot/ *not literally. With Babe Ruth at the plate, and Dean Chance on deck with no pinchhitters available for Chance, and men on second and third, okay, go fer it!

Frayed Knot wrote: I would have IW'd him too. And for Ronnie to be any more adamant about the free pass he would have had to actually be Adam Ant. The result of Buck's method was ultimately the same, just with more stress on his pitcher ... not to mention on us. Wonder if the odds bear you out on the IBB. Let's say the greatest hitter in the game is up there. Willie "Babe" Trout is a .350 hitter with50 HR power when you're trying to get him out, i.e., throwing some pitches into the part of the strike zone that he favors least. What happens to those .350/50 numbers if you're determined to pitch him where he doesn't like the ball, only you're trying to put it six inches off the plate? Probably, 70% of the time you end up walking him anyway, because Willie "Babe" Trout knows the strike zone. Which is the same result as an IBB. But the other 30% of the time, you've reduced those gaudy numbers to mere human levels, .275/20 or something like that.