Oakland

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Mainframe Crunch on the Flight of the Condor

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Q.  Does the Mainframe crunch with a particular munch on this topic?

A.  Read it and weep.  Dr. D's Oct. 9th "Food Fight" article featured the eerie prescience of The Wreck of the Titan.

Everybody disagreed strongly, but he persisted.   When you've got Biff's future almanac, that's your attitude.  

... Well, technically, somebody disagreed, but as you know, Dr. D resents this as much as if everybody did.  And technically, Grizzly was the one who first said "I'll bet Saunders is gone in the offseason," and we put the Uma Thurman 5-finger discount onto his idea.  But we're hoping you won't read the link.

At any rate, Dr. D will thank you not to question his wisdom, ever again.  Especially regarding Michael Saunders.

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Q.  We do presume that SSI agrees, at minimum, that this trade is feebleminded?

Pride Goeth Before a Niners Nation Meltdown

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Psychologically, you should be confident in yourself.  And this confidence should be based in FACT.  - Bobby Fischer

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title - Yeah, I think this is it. The dirty dirty seahawks have basically destroyed this era a 9er football. It's over. For nothing.

text - For the glory of the filthiest football team that’s ever walked. Makes no sense.  - Fred.P.Soft, ninersnation.com poster

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Q.  No Mariners post on Monday morning?  Unforgivable.

A.  This is a Mariners post.  Hear me out, babe.

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Q.  Kaepernick threw two 70 MPH bullets that could have broken Richard Sherman's face mask.  Wouldn't that have been awesome if he'd read the radar gun going off the field, and kissed his bicep!

A.  Y'know it's a funny thing ... "Pride goeth before a fall."  It sounds like a cliche, but look at it in 3D Imax.  Colin Kaepernick spent his rookie year gloating and partying (instead of learning how to read defenses).  Now his life on the national stage is a blinkin' nightmare.

When we rate ourselves more highly than is the reality, when we lose our sense of danger, horrible things can happen.  Hor. Rib. Bull.

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Q.  Aren't you kinda piling on here?  It's beneath you.

A.  Kaepernick applied for a trademark.  We're soft-pedaling this thing, man.

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Q.  What is he supposed to do?  Not enjoy the fruits of his labor?

A.  When Russell Wilson stepped up on stage after the NFC championship, he asked Terry Bradshaw "What does it take to WIN the Super Bowl?"  That really took me aback.  Any normal person would have been gloating, or at least basking.  Russell has an instinctive sense of danger.

He has become a real joy to watch.  Russell Wilson is quite literally a 1-man NFL offense, and he does it with a light, airy style that makes you feel good about life and yourself.  His confidence and joy are contagious.

There's a paradox working here.  :: drumroll ::

There Were the 2011 Phillies and 90's Braves, Too, kiddies

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The 2014 Oakland A's traded a 115 OPS+ hitter, Yoenis Cespedes, for a playoff ace, Jon Lester.  They also traded for Jeff Samardzija, pushing all their poker chips into the rotation pot.

You might have noticed that this didn't work.  It might very well have been the most extreme case, in all of baseball history, for the failure of this particular strategy.

But!  Let's hand the mike to Aristotle at Hey Bill:

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Hey Bill--Mattingly is going to bring back Kershaw tonight on short rest in a must-win game rather than start Dan Haren. Haren is a good pitcher in his own right, he has pitched well over the last month, and he's fully-rested. Does it make sense to bring an ace back on short rest, even someone as good as Kershaw (who of course got shelled Friday)? Is Kershaw on three-days' rest really that much better than Haren on full rest? This strategy always reminds me of Gene Mauch and the '64 Phillies. Thanks.
Asked by: Ted
Answered: 10/7/2014
Well, why does the one time that the strategy failed count more than 50 times (in the same era) when the same strategy was used successfully?

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That'll do for us too.

Backs to the Wall

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I would compare the M's situation to that of an NFL team, down 14 points at halftime.  (That's about an 11% chance of winning for the bad guys, by the way.  Advanced NFL Stats gave a mere 4% chance of winning to Houston, down 14 with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter).

There isn't a lot of margin for error.  The M's simply have to win now, no excuses.  If they go 5-1 then the Royals will probably go 3-3 or worse.  Statistically speaking, the Royals have the following chances of winning X games or less, proceeding only from the basis that they're a .545 team:

  • 57% chance, winning 3 games or fewer
  • 26% chance, winning 2 games or fewer (M's could go 4-2)
  • 7% chance, winning 1 game or fewer (M's could go 3-3 and back into a WC game)

I find that a little bit encouraging, on a discouraging day.  Because when the Seahawks were up 14 in the third quarter, the victory didn't seem a slam dunk, and wasn't a slam dunk.Notice there is an additional 25% chance, roughly, that Oakland will win 2 games or fewer.  Or is that a 90% chance?  :- )

Mo' on LoMo, Bo's

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My wife and I like to make up captions for the goofy faces they put on the scoreboard.

  • "Can I bring her home at nine, Sir?"  (ingratiating face)
  • "We get fruit cup!"  (absurdly happy face)
  • "Best brownies I ever had"  (glazed eye face, vaguely happy to be there)

Above, we'll go with that Vogue editor in Romy & Michelle, when the stars told her "We invented Post-Its."  um, I know you're not serious here.  

Zduriencik couldn't have traded Carter Capps for a starting 1B, right.

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