Will Spiegel discuss his issues with alcohol, speaking tersely to women, as well as the spectacle he made of himself...in public, if you weeell?

viewtopic.php?f=75&t=109093

What happened?

To hear these guys tell it (and I'm assuming Bernstein will be worse about it, somehow), it might actually be a GOOD thing that the Cubs shit their pants in the NLCS.

I don't disagree that making the NLCS three straight years and winning one World Series is pretty damn good, especially considering the less-than-stellar history of this franchise over the last century or so, but Parkins saying "People need to have a cognitive understanding of the randomness of baseball." just makes me laugh and roll my eyes.

Ain't no understanding like cognitive understanding

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Literally nothing random about that series. It is a 100% a$$ whooping. That was a case of the much better team won. It happened as it should.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

I cognitively understand that the Dodgers were 91-36 at one point.

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The only thing I can remember about my Psych 100 class down at U of I was the following:

The TA for the class was making jokes about Bill Clinton. In hindsight, she actually looked like a thinner version of Moinca Lewinsky. She put up some joke on the overhead for the Clinton Income Tax Form. It was a post card that said: 1) Write down your income. 2) Send the amount in line 1 to the IRS.

In any case, my point is I don't even understand the term cognitive.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

'Cause cognitive understanding don't stop ....... except in cases of dementia, Alzheimer's, Lewy Body, stroke, cerebral malaria, CTE, Facebook use, sleep deprivation, being a sports messageboard owner/moderator, etc.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

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True and still, the Cubs lead in 4 of 5 games. With a good/great bullpen this series might have gone 7.

People tend to use "randomness"—or, in Bernstein's case, a bastardized usage of "variance" because he thinks it makes him sound smarter—as filler for all baseball failures.

Randomness in baseball is a line drive finding a glove, a warning track shot with just enough backspin to carry it over the wall, a diving liner turning over and touching down fair instead of foul. This series loss isn't about randomness, because the team was victimized by very little of that, if any at all. This is about a failure to execute, top to bottom.

Kris Bryant's 14 K's in 40 AB's in the postseason this year weren't random. The team as a whole this series striking out at a rate above 30% isn't random. Schwarber batting .167 isn't exactly unexpected given his regular season. Walking Yu Goddamned Darvish wasn't a statistical anomaly caused by small sample size. The litany of weak grounders being turned into outs isn't an unfair changing of the baseball winds.

The personalities will try to spin it like the dice just came up wrong for the Cubs this year and they crapped out, when really they crapped their pants.

Was there really any point in a game where you felt the Cubs were in complete control? The closest I could argue for is when they had that early 2-0 lead on Saturday.

Even when they led you felt like the Cubs were an accident waiting to happen.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Absolutely not. I kinda thought they had a shot in Game 1.

But if they had a good pen, I would have. That's my point.

I'm Jim Rome. C-B-S SPORTS-RA-DI-O!!

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10am hour with Sahadev Sharma was excellent Cubs talk.

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

What you're talking about really relates to the way this team is built and the current conventional wisdom on structuring an offense. Part of that is the idiotic belief (mostly made without any real thought and usuallly just a regurgitation of something read at Fangraphs or Prospectus or Sheehan's newsletter) that "a strikeout is no different than any other out." This is often followed by the same person talking about BABIP and the randomness of balls in play. It seems lost upon these people that it then logically follows that a non-strikeout will result in an overall OBP of around 30% while a strikeout results in an OBP of slightly more than 0%.

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The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

I believe strikeouts, mathematically dont affect run expectancy anymore than ground outs or fly outs.


How is a strikeout different? Just in judging the hitter? Or affecting the game?

I think the disconnect is that after the out is recorded there is little difference between a K and any other out.

But to say that you have one batter who is likely to strike out in 30% of his plate appearances and another that is likely to have the same BABIP but will only strike out 10% of the time and they are equivalent (assuming everything else is equal), well you can see how silly that is.

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The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

randomness in basuboru? leash will visit this thread soon and wreak vengeance

put the damn ball in play. besides, when you're off, you're off. you get nothing. can kill you in a short series, for a variety of reasons.

Right. Let's simply it. We have a crystal ball and we know that:

1) Player A will come to bat and strike out.
2) Player B will come to bat and put the ball in play.

Regardless of the ultimate disposition of Player B's at-bat, it's more desirable simply because it will result in him reaching base approximately 30% of the time.

JLN?

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The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

They averaged 1.6 runs per game in the NLCS. A better pen wasn't going to save them.

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“How do you get to be president and you’re stupid?” Donald J Trump - 4/10/25
When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus. - Turkish Proverb

They probably wouldn't have won, but they could have made it a series, got it to 6 or 7 games.

Astros are playing Game 6 today (with a decent chance to win) and have averaged 1.8

It was an ass kicking no doubt, Im really just pointing out how huge bullpens can be in post season.

With a runner on third and no outs I think the team wants player B to be up.

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Elections have consequences.

He is having twins and naming them, Chardonnay and Wellington.

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The mitigating factor is that guys who strike out a lot and get to remain in the big leagues while playing regularly tend to have a lot of power. I'm sure that JLN can give us a number where the cost of the strikeouts is outweighed by the benefit of the power. The problem is that you don't know when the homers are going to come. The Cubs don't really have any table setters. Zobrist is the one guy they have who reliably puts the ball in play.

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The Court will accord substantial deference to the government's immigration policies, particularly those that implicate matters of national security.

What if Player B has a higher percentage of getting beamed in the head by a throw from the 3rd Basemen, or pulls a hammy running to first, or gets attacked by a drunk White Sox fan? Does that change the importance?

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this was essentially my Lofton/DeRosa argument in 04/05.

They miss Fowler, and they do need more contact hitters. But those guys are cheaper and easier to find.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

JORR, the stats guys frame the argument differently, which is the flaw in their logic. They say something like this:

"An out made via strikeout is the same as a batted out." Meaning, they are talking about a known batted out. Where they fail is exactly what you described. A batted ball is an opportunity to get on base either by hit or fielder error. Whereas a strikeout is almost always an out but for the few times where there is a successful dropped third strike.


It is sickening to watch the poor quality of at bats, while guys hit right into the shift time after time and swing as hard as they can when the situation calls for a ball in play. I know the games evolves, but I am having a hard time seeing how the high level of strikeouts is good for offenses and the fans.

I couldn't be more disappointed in the Cubs' approach at the plate during the Dodgers series. They should be ashamed- swinging at pitches above their heads and in the dirt and into the shift.

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Hawaii (fuck) You