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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 23, 2024 0:24:46 GMT -5
That first game he definitely looked overmatched. What surprised me was how his command deserted him at crucial times. Nerves perhaps.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 22, 2024 23:59:51 GMT -5
It isn't about generosity it's an answer to the question and nothing more. For context it was one of three scenarios laid out by Silver including the idea that it was Ohtani's bet. Please read his entire narrative. Next question...
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 22, 2024 22:40:37 GMT -5
I take note of the last paragraph: the basic fact of the matter is that $4.5 million was transferred from Ohtani's account to a bookie. Occam's razor leans in the direction that Ohtani was gambling. For those with a banking background, how exactly would a person steal money via wiring from someone else’s account, which is what Ohtani’s people seem to be alleging? Life if I use a shady ATM to withdraw 100 bucks my bank will text me to make sure it’s me - how would Ohtani not get notified about 4.5 MILLION dollars in bank transfers? Ippei was an interpreter, not an accountant? If you read Silver's piece, he explains it clearly. His relationship with the interpreter was very close, very personal. If he trusted him enough to have him acting as a personal secretary with access to the account, that's all it would take.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 22, 2024 13:27:08 GMT -5
I read about that so-called relationship early this morning. For the uninformed, Wikipedia has often been used for spin control. Since it's open to anyone it can quickly be corrected also. The back fence denizens never stops chattering so critical thinking is always in order.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 22, 2024 11:57:20 GMT -5
That is very true. My estimate was closer to a half-dozen fewer losses than they experienced. That's more realistic I believe.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 22, 2024 11:48:37 GMT -5
The most important point Meyer makes, for me, is about the complete unwillingness of MLB - which carries the water for ownership - to ever consider: It took years, but club owners finally figured out that the aging curve informs decisions about big payouts - as opposed to vastly underpaying young talent in their pre-arb and even arbitration periods.
This is the one place where Marvin Miller's legacy hurts. He believed that having too many players in the market would devalue their worth. Neither he nor just about anyone else foresaw the flood of data that would become available for mining everywhere thanks to networked computing power. That data clearly revealed that the 5-6 years of cheap control coincided with the peak years for most players. It's simple to conclude that owners will fight like hell to maintain such extreme financial leverage.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 21, 2024 19:43:37 GMT -5
He had the presence to understand that, from where he scooped up the groundball, he had a good angle on the throw to Story at second. He may even have planned the short hop pickup to get that angle. His instincts seem to be over the top.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 21, 2024 15:05:01 GMT -5
I concur, as this will have wide reaching implications if MLB tries to sweep it under the rug.. ( Kindly requesting a "Say It Ain't So, Sho" thread name How about "Sho' me the money"??
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 21, 2024 6:40:55 GMT -5
Yamamoto hasn't quite reached all-star caliber yet.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 21, 2024 5:34:09 GMT -5
Absolutely disastrous first inning for Yamamoto in Seoul. More than 40 pitches, over half were off the plate, five runs given up. Batters were just teeing up.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 20, 2024 23:10:24 GMT -5
I have a hard time believing a gambling operation would allow for an interpreter to rack up that much in debt I'll beg to differ. You've got a pilot fish in tow and the big one is following along. That could have been an easy bet to get the bill paid. But the $4.5M may have blinded the bookie to how big the wake would be, pulling in the Feds. This fellow must have been known to the authorities and they may have been willing to ignore him for the "service" he provided. No more...
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 20, 2024 17:41:52 GMT -5
There's a conflict in the threads, between wanting to plan for extensions such as the one Bello got, and shipping money out to Snell and other unnamed "shoulda-hads". I imagine there's some budgeting and long-term planning going on. I felt early on that they needed more starting pitching depth. With Giolito hurt and Sale gone, that's still a need I believe. These are tough decisions and reasonable people can disagree. But going forward, I don't see how they can get the emerging core extended while also buying for marginal wins.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 17, 2024 0:02:56 GMT -5
One of the dead horses I regularly beat is that while slow-mo video combined with bio-mechanics has allowed pitching gurus to optimize every aspect of a pitchers delivery for maximum effect, that may have unexamined physical implications that are unsustainable for the long seasonal haul we expect from starting pitchers.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 16, 2024 13:37:17 GMT -5
Listening to Ian Cundall right now. Brings all the insight and expertise from the podcasts to the NESN broadcast.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 15, 2024 13:18:29 GMT -5
Here's a good book on the "pre-history" of professional baseball...
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 14, 2024 11:28:18 GMT -5
MLB carried a short piece on Casas' HR against Rodon today, encouraged by the fact that it was against a lefthander given that he'd hit "just .215/.361/.456" against them in 2023. Forget about the fact that the OBP was just about on par with what he did against righthanders. I did a simple calculation. What if he'd had 3 more singles fall in somewhere in those 97 PAs? The batting line would have been .253/.392/.494 so that's all it would have taken to get him out of "just" territory. In other words in such a small sample it's not much more than noise. MLB might be wise to leave the jargon behind and talk statistical sense to people. If they want knowledgeable fans they could help the process along instead of keeping them in the dark with the old talk. Isn’t a small sample because he was being protected a bit? That would suggest the lefties he faced tended not to be elite lefties. I say this only to suggest you could as easily ask what happens if you add 3 or more ABs against top lefties… as opposed to the 3 dink singles. You're making my argument for me. If adding or subtracting just a few results significantly changes the line either way that's a measure of how meaningful - or not - the sample is. What I'm more interested in is a realistic assessment of what that sample-size means in those narratives. Why not educate readers? As for whether he was protected, how do we know what he would have done "un-protected". That's the same sort of conundrum.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 14, 2024 1:25:01 GMT -5
MLB carried a short piece on Casas' HR against Rodon today, encouraged by the fact that it was against a lefthander given that he'd hit "just .215/.361/.456" against them in 2023. Forget about the fact that the OBP was just about on par with what he did against righthanders.
I did a simple calculation. What if he'd had 3 more singles fall in somewhere in those 97 PAs? The batting line would have been .253/.392/.494 so that's all it would have taken to get him out of "just" territory. In other words in such a small sample it's not much more than noise.
MLB might be wise to leave the jargon behind and talk statistical sense to people. If they want knowledgeable fans they could help the process along instead of keeping them in the dark with the old talk.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 23:56:18 GMT -5
As Yuchang points out, they've got a few horses they paid lot of money for. Before time runs out he's taking one more shot trying to conjure up wins to get to the playoffs. And pitching was a big need. There are a few others for sure.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 22:30:57 GMT -5
One more roll of the dice.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 20:43:34 GMT -5
Here you go. Now this has the FanGraphs logo prominently displayed, and you've embedded the link so I hope this passes muster on giving credit:
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 14:38:39 GMT -5
It's spring training. People were writing the same thing about Dalbec. He's got one of the better lines now. We all need to climb down off the small sample hobby horse. This stuff is not completely meaningless but it can change in a flash and it hardly reflects the regular season.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 12:54:54 GMT -5
Pivetta has found his groove.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 12:24:16 GMT -5
Great throw by Abreu. He had the runner if the ball hadn't been dropped by McGuire.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 10:34:44 GMT -5
For all the talk about Abreu's platoon splits (in all of 10 MLB PAs) here's Verdugo's line against lefthanders last year: .220/.311/.298!
When the Sox traded for him he had very good platoon numbers. That really changed in his years with the team. It won't take much for Abreu to prove at least as valuable, and he has a better arm, a cannon for those throws from deep in the rightfield corner.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 13, 2024 9:56:52 GMT -5
Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal - in no specific order - are some of the best and best run cities in North America. Not a lot of work for a ball player in Vancouver, though. ...or Montreal
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