unclevlad

I'd worry about burnout in that scheme. I'd also say...not a little more. More like double. Figure...the home plate ump makes 90+% of the borderline calls, with most of the rest going to the first place ump. The home plate ump gets hammered with pitches and foul tips a fair bit. Secondary consideration...in the tennis world, an issue with electronic line calling is that being a linesman is the entry into the world of tennis officiating. If the pool of home plate umps is kept rigidly under wraps, how do we decide when a) an existing HPU needs to be downgraded b) a base ump is good enough to be elevated That said, something like that for the playoffs sounds more practical. Another option might be that a good base ump with a good sense of the game...but a shaky grasp of the strike zone...never gets put behind the plate. At the least, the notion of rotating the assigned umps as if they're all equal, is CLEARLY nothing more than inertia at work. To a point, one can figure that the bad umps don't get in. For grins, I'm looking up the worst of the worst: C B Bucknor. He's done...2 ASGs (including '21), a wild card game, and 5 division series...07-09, 13, and 20. So he *doesn't get a postseason assignment A LOT. Nor does that show how many games where he was the home plate ump. OTOH, the consensus AWFUL umpire is Angel Hernandez...and he's gotten at least division series games, even recently. I suspect some of this is MLB doesn't want its dirty laundry exposed too much. Umpiring is HARD, too, so too much oversight, or what might be viewed as discriminatory assessment like "he's not a Home Plate Umpire" might make recruiting even harder. I can also see serious pushback from the umpires' union. That said, the fact that they haven't fired a Bucknor or Hernandez says they're gunshy about it. Hernandez has sued the league for not making him a crew chief...which gets more pay...and it's *clear* that partitioning the umpire pool into "base umps" versus "home plate umps" would guarantee litigation and hard feelings.

I don't think it was that game, but I remember another recent game that was similar. Wasn't paying a lot of attention, but the broadcast team said much the same. Many, many absurdly bad calls by the home plate ump. STUPID, LAME blackout rules are shutting down the Giants and Padres broadcast from Mexico City...which was gonna be fun. The ball park is at 7300 feet....yeah, 2000 feet higher than Denver...so the ball's gonna FLY. The run total over/under was 15.5 (!!!). It's the San Diego cable system...WHY????? Utterly lame. MLB is looking at it, but it'll be a royal mess because there are so many disparate players in the game. And of course the fans are never represented. BTW, Umpire Scorecards has the umpire stats. Granted that there aren't many games in the books yet, but.... The HP ump in that game was Scott Barry. He has the lowest accuracy score, the lowest maximum accuracy score (meaning he never has a good game), and the 6th worst average consistency, among all umpires. https://umpscorecards.com/umpires/

When it's guns being shot off, I agree. BUT... My area has a dog ownership problem...in that, quite a few dog owners don't train their dogs and/or leave them alone and outside. Periodically on the Nextdoor neighborhood app, people will post about it. It's VERY common to have others say "go talk to them first." They call that being a good neighbor, and calling the cops is being a bad guy. But shooting a gun, yeah, that's already at an unacceptable level for trying to talk to the neighbor. First shot...I'm going WTF.... Second, I'm calling, and far as I'm concerned, this is worth a call to 911. (Come to think, there was one instance where I thought I heard a gunshot...and called 911. They didn't find anything but they didn't mind in the least. And this was...good gosh...30 years ago maybe. Much less now.) Look, I don't know...and honestly, I'm not inclined to find out...if the shots are just shooting into the air...or something else. I DARN sure, as others are saying, am NOT!!!!! stepping outside, potentially to make myself a target. Still, they didn't deserve to get killed for their action. The <bleep> who did it, deserves to fry tho.

Considering what I was thinking, I figured that might've motivated your comment.

You put that diplomatically, sir.

Next thing you know, Food Network will use a Domino's Pizza as a required or special secret ingredient, a la Chopped or Iron Chef America.

Sometimes it's hard to figure out why a team's so bad. Sometimes it's not. Royals at Twins. 3-2 Twins, bottom 4th, 1 out, runner on 3rd. Royals have all the infielders drawn it, at the cut of the grass, trying to cut the run off. Batter bunts the ball...safety squeeze. The runner at third has been waltzing down the line....the ball hasn't bounced a second time before he's about to score. (The rules about throwing to the bases could be a factor on that. This might be something to address.) That's not the problem. ALL the infielders crash. It's a good bunt, and the first baseman's massively out of position. The batter can waltz down to first. NOW we get to the worst part. The batter does the mild right turn, to go into foul ground...but the ball's still live, as he's just done that. He looks...the second baseman had crashed, the shortstop had crashed, and second base is COMPLETELY uncovered!!! So, he says Thank You Very Much...and runs down several steps ahead of any fielder. The ball travels 20 feet from home plate...and the only sensible scoring is a double, since neither mental nor team errors are acknowledged in the scoring. Absolutely terrible defensive play, but hey, the Royals are 6-20. Only the utterly, disastrously inept A's are worse...and they're only 1 game worse. (A's staff ERA is 8. Let me repeat that...8. That wouldn't be a record if it holds up, but it might be a non-Colorado record. The 2012 Rockies had a 10.5 team ERA...in a total launching pad at the time. Were this soccer, 3 teams in the AL...A's, Royals, and White Sox...would be on pace. All 3 are on pace to lose 110+ games. That's not likely to last throughout the season; the D'backs had a similar start and a (near-?) record losing streak, but from, IIRC, mid-June on, played decent ball.

Where do I sign up? (and if you say it's at the Colonial Defense Force recruiting station...........I'll pass....)

That goes without saying. The Chiefs are in Missouri, tho. Yeah, someone really needs to tell the city to change its name, it's confusing. HOWEVER, the kid apparently is a native of KC, MO, so...ok. Even the end of the first round is still, IIRC, fully guaranteed, and quite good, money.

The real winner of the draft tonight..... The Georgia Bulldogs. EDIT: I suppose there may be significant logistical issues waiting so long, but having the draft held in the Super Bowl champ's city is working out very nicely.

Oh yeah, the Saints went for Carr...and didn't pick a QB. So Levis falls to round 2, looks like. And the long night's journey to the dawn is going to be over soon....

Well let's see...left to pick in the first round, Bengals, Saints, Eagles, and Chiefs, unless there are more trades. Of those, ONLY the Saints might draft a QB in round 1.

That's my take, too, on both accounts...*with a proviso*. Base stealing has a high risk for slide-related injuries, like jamming a hand into the bag. Judge was shaking his hand for the rest of the game the other day...after sliding into 3rd. And there've been notable injuries during slides. If this becomes a bigger issue, it might lead some managers to run less. Yeah, in the Cards-Giants game, they were talking about that. I was half-asleep at the time. It's quite a bit riskier. A ball beating the infield shift is a single; a ball beating the outfield shift is typically an EASY double and might be a triple. We shall see. I hope they leave things alone for at least this year, and probably longer, and see how it plays out.

On the Cards...I'm not following things closely at all; I don't have it on TV. I'd rather wait til the end of the round and have the time to look things over.... Starlord: I refuse to ignore the character concerns, because they've proven to be overriding too often. "The best ability is availability" isn't a proper characterization, IMO, but it's true that if you take yourself off the field, it doesn't matter how good you are. Article about the Jackson contract... https://www.si.com/nfl/2023/04/27/lamar-jackson-contract-guarantees-self-negotiated-deal

QBs go first and second.... First RB off the board at #8. Talk about rare.

Guys, let's close this thread and move everything from here on, into the 23-24 thread.

Read the story. The link again: https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/26/politics/montana-house-bans-zooey-zephyr/index.html There is a case there for abuse of privileges, IMO, due to the "blood on your hands" comment. It could have been phrased in a less inflammatory manner. She was asked to apologize for that, but chose not to. I'm not saying the Speaker was completely in the right, but neither was she, IMO. Flip the script. Start from the premise that "blood on your hands" was, in fact, over the top, and considering it a violation of the chamber's rules of decorum is reasonable. THEN, what do you want the Speaker to do? The bill is offensive, sure. I totally get that. I totally get objecting to it. But that doesn't mean she was right in how that objection was expressed, or in her characterizations about the apology.

Sure, but the first consideration is getting through the primaries. Or maybe second, as he'd need to build a structure capable of large-scale campaigning. Side thought...if he gets trounced in the primaries...runs 3rd at best, losing to both Trump and DeSantis, this might damage his brand/credibility long term. I lean to a '28 run, should the Republicans lose again, rather than a '24 run.

Not quite true. There's one specific skeleton that matters: the whole "I hate Trump with a passion" will get played up. Do you stay loyal to Trump, or switch to Carlson when he's a Trump Betrayer? To be sure, it's possible this'll hurt Trump most, and help leverage DeSantis...but I don't see how it'll help Carlson. Oh...man.... I was kinda thinking...it was gonna start being miserable in the next few months, as we see the campaigns ramp up in advance of the early primaries... No. It's getting miserable, for me, NOW. A DeSantis SuperPAC called Never Back Down is airing ads...some were on MLB Network (had it on before the Braves game went into a multi-hour rain delay) and then on ESPN. And apparently there's other ads coming out, that I haven't seen...thankfully. A two-way Trump/DeSantis race will be ugly; I think a 3-way race with Carlson, if Carlson can actually gain traction, will be a total bloodbath.

Yes, I hear that too, but I disagree with it too. My factors...take your pick, and more than one is likely... --player ego. That "I'm not paid to hit singles" was Ortiz most notably, whose ego is bigger than his waistline. --analyst apologia. While they will criticize individuals, mostly when they're talking in broad terms like this, it's "gosh, all the players are brilliant, they're the best in the world!" Well if that's the case, then you have to make the pitchers brilliant because their stuff is too hard to adjust to. Heck, how many hitters cut down their swing with 2 strikes??? Not even suggesting choking up, just not swing for the fences. --overtrained, overgrooved robotic hitters...in part, to that power stroke. See above WRT not cutting back. Note that some hitters...Acuna, IIRC, is one...have blown off launch angle, and are overall MUCH more effective. --terrible accountability...IF you can hit a decent number of home runs. Rob Deer. Adam Dunn. Mark Reynolds, to a point...he did get knocked for his strikeouts. Strikeouts aren't the only factor in bad hitting, but the Deers and Dunns combine high strikeouts with bad batting average. IIRC, too...some of them were bad defensive players. --brain-dead attempt to use analytics...which IMO is prevalent in ALL sports. Individually, a power hitter might be better...but a full lineup of power hitters is NOT necessarily better. There's second-level impacts for having baserunners. ANY tactic taken taken to extremes, opens itself to counters because the other side has the right to react. (Yes, this is a HUGE factor why I still dislike banning the shift.) If they only have one tactic to consider, their problems are greatly reduced. --hype-making by analysts and talking heads. Clickbait sells. "It's too hard for the hitters to adjust" is better clickbait. And of course, my absolute favorite, moronic example...that the wider bases are making stealing easier. <sigh> I STILL hear this. NOT MEASURABLY. If a base runner has a 12 foot lead, he's got about 75 feet to travel to reach the front of the bag ahead. Shortening that by 6 inches is shortening it by about 0.6%. If it takes 3 seconds before, it's about .02 seconds. A 90 mph fastball takes about 0.454 seconds to reach the plate...figure the pitcher's extension is largely cancelled by the fact that the ball has to get to the catcher. A 96 mph fastball takes about 0.426 seconds. There's variance for a catcher to receive the ball then release it...sometimes it will be smoother than others. If there's that much variance in time to plate by the pitcher...the catcher's throw is twice as long, so the variance on the ball in flight time is MUCH longer than 0.02 seconds. But no...analysts get some fixed, simplistic explanation in their heads and stick with it, FAR too often. I think "the hitters don't have time to adjust" is a HUGE one.

You're right, I just forgot that's the meaning of the title in TV news. If Carlson tries for the Republican nomination, a) the late night types will have a field day b) oh my, the backstabbing at a Carlson / Trump / DeSantis debate would be most amusing... c) ...almost as entertaining as seeing how Fox News covers his candidacy Mind, neither rises to a level where I'd actually *watch*... I think he'd find out that the spotlight intensity for a presidential candidate is orders of magnitude more than on a network talking head, and it's sounding like he's got way more than enough skeletons in his closet to cause big problems.

Oh my.... My, oh my, oh my... Milwaukee enters the 4th quarter, at home, up 16. First 4 minutes of the 4th, they hit 2 FTs...that's it. (Miss 2 as well.) Heat get back to within 7 before Holliday hits a 3. They get 1 point in the next 4 minutes. Yep...the first 8 1/2 minutes, they score all of 6 points. There's more of a flurry both ways...with the Heat making a layup to tie the game with 0.1 seconds left. The Heat outlast the Bucks in the OT to win the game. A big factor...Bucks miss 5 FTs in the 4th quarter, and 3 more in OT. Giannis only shoots 10 for 23 from the line. Can't say it's all on him, but that's a key stat when you lose in OT. I expect there's gonna be some significant changes coming. EDIT: yeah, Ernie Johnson dropped the number I didn't want to work out...Bucks shot 5 for 25 from the field in the 4th and OT. At home, in an elimination game. 1 - 2 - 3...CANCUN!!! Morning after edit...The Athletic noted that a collapse like last night's, may cost Budenholzer his job. They didn't predict it; the Bucks did win in '21. Still, what would've been unthinkable at the end of the regular season is...thinkable.

Even if you think you know the continuity, it'll be changed within 3-4 years. Or muddled beyond belief, if all the series are allowed individual takes. All the more reason to continue ignoring DC...

You're quite generous. Me, I don't see it, cuz I don't see Carlson moving behind the camera yet. If ever. Unless it's a combo gig somehow, but I think he is going to try hard to keep himself on camera.

Yeah, and coming back from innings, you don't have that really leisurely period you used to have. I think the game's going to move away somewhat from the power-dominated game, simply because singles hitters are more useful when there's runners on 2nd more. Which is the case, with steals being up so much. You don't need 3 hits to score a run; you can do it with 2. The best offensive team I can recall, somewhat recently, was the 1998 Yankees. DEPTH!!! of hitting. No one hit 30 HRs, but 8 different players had 17+. 8 players had 20+ doubles. The team slash line was .288/.364/.460/.825. Jeter struck out the most...but only 119 times, and he hit .324 even at that. It might not be possible to do that now; the common refrain is that pitchers are far ahead of hitters in information use...that was part of the argument for the shift. Another comment from earlier...during the D'backs game. Bob Brenly was talking about relatively soft-tossing, lower-velocity pitching sometimes messing up hitters' timing. Well, he pointed out, some batters back in the day would move up in the box to increase the apparent velocity...but today's hitters are usually so locked into their rhythm that they can't do that. That point was also cited many times for banning the shift...that hitters won't or *can't* adjust. We'll see if things change. It'll be slow, at best, as it's hard to revamp salary structures broadly. There's too much pushback based on the existing contracts that *do* pay exorbitent premiums for power.