The Ginger Man
Located in the heart of
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Texas
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State
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12 758
Should Starbucks replace its baristas with a robot?
There is a lot to be said for the idea of a robot coffee maker. A new startup has built a trial espresso machine which operates entirely automatically. (There is only one machine currently in existence. It's located on the University of Texas campus, if you want to visit.)
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The David Price Scenario
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Q. Wouldn't SSI prefer an offseason that improved the hitting?
A. SSI would prefer an offseason in which the Mariners were sold to somebody who cared. Preferably the guy who owns the Angels, or the other guy who owns the Rangers. Then we could go get Stanton, Ellsbury AND Choo and ... baseball would be the new football.
Failing such an offseason, it would be a lot of fun to see a David Price press conference in Seattle, even if his career SLG is a Brendan Ryan-like .083.
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Q. Is Seattle linked to Price?
A. More than they were linked to that Cuban guy who signed with the White Sox. I succeeded in forgetting his name.
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Q. When was the last team to do good with a great rotation and a dubious offense?
A. They weren't the last team to do good with only pitching, but the 2012 Tampa Rays are an example:
- 99 offense (OPS+)
- 121 pitching (ERA+)
- David Price was on their team
- They won 90
Also, the 2012 Oakland A's had a 99 offense and won the AL West. The 2012 A's had one (1) full time player, that being Josh Reddick. He hit .240 with a .305 OBP and gap power.
Yes, you could find mucho beisbol equipos with dubious offenses, great pitching, and mucho success. The Royals, this year, had an 89 offense (!) and yet won 86 games, contending for a lot of the season.
Texas' offense was only 99 this year. (You do realize that the Mariners' offense was 98, right.) Baltimore's offense was 98 last year, 2012, when they went to the playoffs. When the Angels won 100 games in 2008, their offense was 95 OPS+.
The point is, yeah, we're all sick to the gut of boring offenses. But you don't need a plus offense to contend.
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Q. What would Price cost, in trade talent?
Choosing a cookbook
I get twitchy whenever the topic of cookbooks comes up. Like this article, which goes around asking a lot of famous chefs which cookbook they would recommend people cook their entire way through. Choosing a cookbook is a tricky business, isn't it?
The problem is that a cookbook is not a technical manual. There is no one single way to do anything. But the cookbook's author isn't going to admit that. So instead, every cookbook passes off its author's personal beliefs and prejudices as actual fact.
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Crocker’s Jewelers, Texarkana
A popular staple of the
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Spec's College Nickel Package -- Week 7
October 19 -- Florida State at Clemson
The Seminoles are back in the heat of the conversation after a 63-0 thrashing of Maryland, which was their fifth straight impressive win behind redshirt freshman QB Jameis Winston.
Winston has put himself on the fringes of the Heisman discussion, a location already firmly held by Clemson QB Tajh Boyd.
Florida State has a bye week, so it's a lock to go into this game 5-0, while the Tigers must get past Boston College in order to carry a 6-0 mark into the contest.
The Zen of Playoff Paradoxes
Been a while since we did a Zen article.
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Bill James points out an interesting paradox on his site. $3 for a month's reading, the value of which this pay article easily exceeds.
Bill notes that teams enter the season with a 1-in-15 chance to win their leagues, all things being equal. But Texas and Tampa Bay entered their game with only a 1-in-16 chance to win the American League.
- Texas to beat Tampa Bay: that's a coin flip, 50% chance
- Texas to then beat Cleveland in the Wild Card: that's 50% of 50%, or a 25% chance
- Texas to then beat Boston in the ALDS: that's half of the remaining 25%, or 12.5%, 1-in-8
- Texas to then beat Detroit in the ALCS: half of 12.5%, or 6.25% 1-in-16
Does that make intuitive sense to you? That any team in Texas' position -- though 9 teams were already eliminated -- that it would be in worse shape than it was to start the season? There's a solution to the paradox, of course, and maybe somebody wants to explain it below.
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Spectometer Radar Scope Alert: Emilio Pagan & Kevin McCoy
If you've been following at home, you probably know by now that two particular areas of fruitful scouting for the Tom McNamara crew have been:
(1) hitters from the northeast part of the country (as McNamara himself was -- Dominican College, Orangeburg, NY) ... Dan Paolini (Siena), Dario Pizzano (Columbia), Patrick Kivlehan (Rutgers), Joe DeCarlo (Pennsylvania HS).
(2) pitchers from low-profile colleges in the south ... Stephen Pryor (Tennessee Tech), Carter Capps (Mount Olive College [NC]), Carson Smith (Texas State).
The Allen Wickers
A relatively new addition to the
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The Esquire Tavern, San Antonio
Located right in the heart of the city, The Esquire Tavern has the distinction of being the oldest bar on
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