slikmar

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

The problem is, you bring in your best guy in the 7th and 8th, then the guy in the 9th blows up and gives up the game.

 

Ideally your starting pitcher gives you 7 or 8 innings, but these days its pretty rare.

Sadly, with the exception of maybe 10-15 pitchers, the days of starters going past 6 is over and any of your 3-5+ starters are lucky to go past 5. Really, with modern analytics, most teams don't want their pitchers to face someone a 3rd time in a game, especially as the players they will face those 3rd times first are probably the 3 best hitters on the team. Used to be about pitch count, now it is about times through order. I think a big part of this is the predilection of guys who throw 96+ but really don't have a good 3rd or 4th pitch and aren't really learning to pitch (just throw what catcher puts down) to setup batters anymore. I think eventually what you will see is the 4-5 spots in a rotation not being so much a bullpen day but a duel starter day. One guy goes through order 1-1.5 times other guys does other 1-1.5 guys, getting you to/through 5th/6th (I was going to make this about outs, but it really won't be). Your rotation then would have a 1 who can hopefully get you 7 innings, 2 and 3 who can do 6 and then, in effect, 2 long guys matched for the other 2 days. I think that pairing will almost always be a lefty/righty combo, thereby messing with your opponents batting order and bench depth.

1 hour ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

A genuine, high quality closer for the Mets is a really, really huge deal. That's been their Achilles heel for years, a lack of relief.  The problem is, they have to wade through middle relief to get to Diaz, and they can (and will) easily lose the game long before he even starts warming up.

Sometimes, as the A's announcers were talking about last night, saving the game isn't really in the 9th inning, but is in the 7th or 8th, when the lead is precarious and the opponents best hitters are due up. Not to denigrate anyone, but would you rather your best reliever face the 1-5 hitters in the 7th/8th or the 6-9 in the 9th? Miller from Cleveland started one of the new trends of the fireman (as Brian Kenney calls it) rather then the Closer.

16 hours ago, archer said:

 

For three-quarters of the teams in the league, the question is always pitching.

The old quote still applies. "Baseball is 50% pitching, unless it is bad, in which case it is 90%".

See, I think Ohtani is more likely to continue pitching over hitting, provided he maintains velocity. I would love to see him convert to a closer/late inning guy, one who could do multiple innings. Then he could DH most the game and just come out on mound. Of course, late in game, DH doesn't matter as much as you would pinch hit for your pitcher anyway. Though apparently he mentally prepares for each separately, hence not hitting in the 2 days around his pitching day.

Sadly, my Angels seem in trouble. Hopefully Upton and Ohtani won't be long, as our pitching is at best average. Our hitting was supposed to be a strength, but we got shutout by Mike Fiers, so not impressed yet.

4 hours ago, Cassandra said:

 

Lex Luthor on Supergirl had added a lot and Jon Cryer is surprisingly good as Lex. 

sadly, I do taxes for a living and therefore from January through april I just record stuff to binge watch later, so haven't seen Lex on show yet.

My wife, her brother and his wife went and saw it. they follow the MCU loosely and don't read comics and they all enjoyed it and thought was fun.

On 3/27/2019 at 6:06 PM, Michael Hopcroft said:

Sherlock Holmes in The House of Fear, a 1944 secondary feature with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Bruce's Watson is far too much a comic-relief character for my taste. The story involves a group of friends in an old house in Scotland who are being picked off one by one after they all took out large insurance policies naming the members of the group as the beneficiaries. If the story reminds you of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, that would not be surprising as this was filmed at the peak of Christie's influence on the mystery genre.

 

I also saw an ITV (I think) documentary called Cat Wars, about the polarizing status of cats in England -- loved by many, but considered by others to be a menace to their gardens, local wildlife, and each other. Of particular note in a section where a cat is under siege from the cat of his neighbor, finally driving him out of his own home despite his humans buying him a special cat door that supposedly only he can open (only to find otherwise).

I used to love the Rathbone/Bruce pairing up until I started watching the Brett/Burke/Hardwick series and realized how much, in the books, the point of Watson wasn't to be a buffoon to Holmes, but to be a DOCTOR, therefore very intelligent to show just how much above normal people Holmes, his brother and Moriarty really were. I am glad that most instances now do portray Watson as a very loyal and competent sidekick.

11 hours ago, archer said:

I've never seen the point of putting people in charge who hate the source material, don't know the source material, or are apathetic toward the source material.

 

And it doesn't matter if you are talking Snyder's DC movies, JJ Abrams Star Trek, or JJ Abrams Star Wars.

If I recall correctly, the person who originally started Smallville was a lesser version of this. It's why he swore there would never be a costume or Superman flying. He never understood the character. It's why it seemed like it took a few years to really get going, because he left. Course, I loved the Lex Luthor from the show and still despise Eisenberg's Luthor (I don't despise Eisenberg and like him in other roles). Sadly, I think someone else doing Dawn of Justice could have made Lex less Joker and more "sympathetic" megalomaniac. I think of Smallville Luthor or Lois and Clark Luthor - worked to be the height of human intelligence and economic/political power and then along comes a man who can fly. "Oh, one more thing. If you ever need to find me, all you have to do is look up."

They take their Mimic testing very seriously.

5 hours ago, Bazza said:

So John Walker aka US Agent. 

A great story would be Walker being put in as CAP by the military (aka Ross as the liaison from the Sakovia Accords) and being too pro USA. I may be wrong, but I don't think he was the Captain America who went crazy (that was Burnside), but they could bring elements of that storyline in and have to get Sam and Bucky to take him out. Then the 2 of them get together with Fury (or whoever heads SHIELD at the time - maybe Steve Rogers himself put into the role to give SHIELD back at least the appearance of being cleaned out) and decide one of them take over the role (or perhaps introduce a new character to take the role that both of them agree could fill Steve's shoes - one friend from the perspective of Steve pre and during WW2 and one from the perspective of the modern Steve Rogers). Maybe even introduce Walker through Sam and Bucky as US Agent after Ross put in William Burnside, a result of one of his Hulk Experimental soldiers, he believes is a die hard American - who turns out to be a rascist and psychotic amplified by the experiments. Walker could help Sam and Bucky take him down and they could say, after watching him, that he should take the mantle.

Still considering seeing it in IMAX, just not sure my brain could take it and hoping IMAX won't be stupid 3d.

I think the best thing going on with this thread is that Marvel Studios has set such a high bar with some of their stuff (to me First Avenger, Winter Soldier, Black Panther and even the first Iron Man) that a movie most of us seemed to like, but even those who disliked it, would rate it above 50% or more of the movies that Hollywood puts out. In a lot of ways, they remind me of Pixar, in that I am always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt about seeing the movies despite negative comments. I really couldn't have said that about DC  (before Wonder Woman) or even some of the other Hollywood franchises out there.

19 hours ago, zslane said:

 

Yeah, that probably makes for more interesting head canon, but how exactly does one lose an eye to a bullet without having one's brains blown out at the same time?

Tahiti - It's a wonderful place.

As I said about the Eye earlier, I liked the idea he lost it taking a bullet for Pierce, as was hinted at and then turned about on Pierce as it was that eye that still gave Fury access to restricted documents. Losing it to the Flerken was silly UNLESS it turns out it is now infected to do something else at some point.

2 hours ago, zslane said:

 

I'm curious which of Larson's statements conveyed that message to you.

I am thinking he is, as others have mentioned, taking the comments she made about Wrinkle in Time (which is basically true, the movie wasn't made for 40+ white males) that were being credited as being about CM, due to the fact she made them at a press conference for CM and was answering a criticism of Wrinkle in Time.

18 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

I would have taken less money to play somewhere other than Anaheim, personally.  Its not like he doesn't get at least that much every year from endorsements anyway

A big part of this is comfort, but also, Trout is as old school a player as is out there amongst the younger guys. He believes in the great players that only played for 1 team and having that as a legacy. I think that weighed more into it then people give credit for.

3 hours ago, Cygnia said:

"No, YOU moove..."

Or, you can get out and taunt it and show Darwinism at work: https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/video/man-car-taunt-bison-yellowstone-57008452

Sorry, not sure how to embed the video.

One other thing mentioned was that she didn't have a hatred of the Skrulls. Actually, my impression of her and her teams reaction was "Another Bug Hunt", IE Aliens. It may have to do a lot with the fact her team seemed to be one that was A: Covert Ops type and B: seemed to have a leader (Yon-Rogg) and others (Minn-Erva and Korath) who were more in the know about the truth behind the Skrull threat (that the Kree had basically won and were using it as a scare tactic).

I liked the blowing up the missiles thing. Felt like an homage to Missile command where you blow up the other missiles with the first one.

14 minutes ago, massey said:

 

At the end of the day, I think there's enough handwavium explanation for how she could have destroyed the Kree ship to not worry about it.  As far as I'm concerned, she was mainlining pure Tesseract juice when she did that.

They did show that when she battled the SI, the Tesseract was sitting there increasingly glowing and feeding her power. So part of endgame may be that she is on a "limited" amount of power, with the stone being gone again.

The sound you hear from the east coast is all the Philly fans becoming, well Philadelphians, and lamenting the loss of the hope for a Harper Trout outfield and all the Yankee fans jaws drops as they KNEW there was no way he wasn't going to come play for them with Judge and Stanton.

Rumor has it that Trout is about to sign an extension equaling Harper's length for basically an additional 100 million (under paid if you compare WAR, which shows that Trout should have got twice as much as Harper) making him effectively an Angel for life, or at least until he is 38. It's funny, I can remember when Puig came up and one or two radio guys were trying to say they would rather have him then Trout. A year after that, they admitted they had been WAY wrong.

I once heard an argument from one of the national radio guys, when asked why they seem to talk about the Yankees/Red Sox so much, that it is because as soon as they talk about someone else they get less calls/attention. I think it is a self feeding process, they "feature" them (Boston basically being ESPN's most local team), people get to hating them, outside of the region, so then more people call in to complain about something they have done or are doing equals higher ratings mean they increasingly feature them. I realize some don't think this, but I think the whole Yankee/Red Sox rivalry being the "best" in baseball is really due to ESPN hyping it up. I have always considered the Dodgers/Giants to be bigger or the Cardinals/Cubs. When your rivalry is really one sided for 80% of the time the 2 teams have played, its not really a rivalry. But, thanks to ESPNs hyping of the Red Sox, they have been able to increase their tv revenues and become a bigger rival. 

Funnily, the two teams MOST responsible for excessive lengths in games are the 2 teams establishment loves the most, Yankees and Red Sox, with their 4 hour snoozefests. too many of their hitters and strategy was about fouling balls off, taking pitches (usually with the help of umpires apparently feeling if a Red Sox or Yankee didn't swing it must be a ball), stepping in and out of the box, going through 12 step routines at the plate (100 if you average in Garciaparra back in the day). So Baseball has to try to fix those 2 teams without apparently making it about them.

41 minutes ago, zslane said:

My problem--and it is a relatively minor one, to be fair--with the personality of Carol Danvers is that she spends the entire movie being so annoyingly smug. That's different, in my view, from being supremely confident or competent or "badass". Smugness is being way too satisfied and impressed with oneself, and it is a bit off-putting if you ask me. But other than that, I had no problem with her character. I certainly had no problem with her actually being supremely confident, competent, or "badass". I just didn't care for her being so bloody smug about it the whole time. It detracted somewhat from her likability, which is a shame, because I really want to like the character as much as I liked Wonder Woman.

So, exactly like Tom Cruise's character from Top Gun, which, I am pretty sure, is exactly what they were going for. She was, for all intents and purposes, a female version of that character. So, given you read that, it means she acted the part perfectly. I took that as being both a Kree thing AND her original personality fighting to get to the surface against their brainwashing. And, as the movie went on and she interacted with Fury and then the Rambeaus, you saw more humanity and confidence as opposed to the smugness.