casimir

What bugs me is he never panned out as a 3B.

Thanks. I was looking specifically for 5 seasons because that’s the current Piston quagmire (well, the absolute lowest point of it anyway), and trying to find any 5 year span worse than it. I eyeballed other teams (like the Mavericks), but the cursory look wasn’t as bad as the current Pistons, so I moved on. As for the Memphis 8 year run, the way things are going, we may be looking at that comparison in 3 years. What an absolute catastrophe this manglement team is.

I think you've mentioned that you don't follow baseball. Michael Lorenzen through a no hitter in August last season and essentially wasn't worthy of being a starting pitcher after that. He hit a season stamina wall because he hadn't pitched as much during a season as he did last season. Maybe that's what happened with Flynn. He had his peak game, but because he hasn't played as much with other teams as he has with this traveshamockery of a franchise, he hasn't the legs to finish the season.

I don't know what the worst 5 season stretch in the NBA is, but the Pistons have to be in the running. They have a shot at the bottom section there (22.68% winning percentage) and currently sit at the top section (22.91%). The Grizzlies have that honor at 20.63% which includes a strike shortened season. I figured the trust the process 76ers had to be in there somewhere, those of us at a certain age knew the mid to late Clippers had to be in there, and I looked over the last several expansion teams which got the Timberwolves in there although their worst stretch didn't include their inaugural season. So, yeah, start cleaning house 5 minutes ago.

Have any players’ unions commissioned any similar studies before? I’m curious, I have no idea. The two seconds seems ridiculous either way during the game. By making the change, what is MLB gaining from it? What’s the reward in exchange of the risk here? The clock was needed and I think it has helped the game flow. But what are we doing with the two seconds?

You forgot no Evbuomwan.

Of the ten worst seasons in franchise history, this season as well as the previous four completed season comprise five of those ten. Nice restoration.

They reduced from 20 seconds to 18 seconds with runners on base? Is that all? It does seem like an unusual move. The “reduced recovery time” that Clark is referring to is solely in game recovery? One of the oddities with the pitch clock is that it reduces the in game betting opportunities. It just strikes me given MLB’s googly eyes with betting these days.

Yup. Get the invite to the playoffs and then hope for series wins once in there.

It ain’t the pitch clock. The abundance of pitching injuries been going on since before the pitch clock. Deaden the ball, allow pitchers to pitch with reduced torque on their arms. Keep the ball in play, the three true outcome brand of baseball disappears, more action on the field,….

Sure. First one to 660 runs scored wins the division? (Go ahead, look at what both scored last season).

That seems like a stretch. I think Las Vegas home games might have a considerable amount of away fans in attendance because of it being in Las Vegas. But second most popular team in the country behind the Yankees? Ahead of the Red Sox and Cubs? And Cardinals and Dodgers? And will the stranded fans in Oakland follow the Giants out of necessity (unless the have MLB.TV and have to deal with blackout rules)? Are the Raiders the second most popular team in the NFL? They had a leg up on the A’s in national popularity when they moved from Oakland. I’m not sure that they’re more popular than the Cowboys, Chiefs, Packers, Steelers. If they were, they’d have the national TV exposure that those other teams do. It’d also be easier to accomplish that with the Raiders being in a western time zone and the national Sunday afternoon games getting the 4pm slot. Are the Golden Knights the second most popular team in the NHL? That might not be a fair comparison because of Canadian fandom and the following that Toronto and Montreal have in Canada. But they’ve also been highly successful for an expansion team (honestly it seems quite unfair to be a winner right away), and we know how popularity can ebb and flow with winning percentage.

Yup. Take two of three and move on to Pittsburgh.

Another team with a questionable offense.

I think the ALL CAPS that you used got his attention. Nice work. Now can you do something about he offense?

Depends upon your perspective. Lots of hilly terrain in Pennsylvania. Detroit to Chicago has a trip through Gary, Indiana. Seems not equal.

This is my uneducated impression of it. There was one or two options for a new stadium in Oakland that seem to have fallen by the wayside a while ago. Was one of them a “Howard’s Terminal” location or something of that sort? Whatever. It seems like that came and went and when there was no traction there, it just kind of felt like a matter of to where else and when rather than staying in Oakland. How long has Oakland had a poor baseball stadium? It started with renovating it for the Raiders to come back to town way back when and has just deteriorated since then. Honest question, will they be able to finish the season there or will they need to play on the road permanently at some point? The Tigers play there in early September, which seems kind of crazy given the fact that the Athletics are in Detroit now. Might those games end up in Sacramento (the River Cats are on the road that week), San Jose (on the road), or elsewhere?

So this is where I am confused. Are the picks bad picks that won’t work together? Does the coaching staff lack the ability to get these guys to develop and mesh? Is it more of both than one or the other? Absolutely dreadful.

I think a market correction was expected for Flynn, but damn, the Great Depression was quite impressed by this game.

That’s an interesting observation. And then the next series is against the second banana of Pennsylvania, for whatever that’s worth.

The commissioner is too busy looking at the valuation of a team being in Las Vegas as opposed to being in Oakland. One fan base might be alienated, but (1) they can follow the team and/or have another geographically easy accessible team to follow and (2) another fan base can be created. Additionally, this clears a hurdle for expansion (the Tampa stadium issue being the other), which will bring in more valuation for the league. And it gives a potential questionable expansion option a trial run, which, the more expansion options, the higher that purchase price will be for the next expansion teams. What’s a little short term bad press going to do when you’re busy counting all of that extra cash coming into the league?

Yes. MLB changed uniforms. The Tiger’s player name font is definitely smaller and lower on the shoulders than in previous seasons. But it’s not just the Tigers, it’s all MLB teams.

The classic damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

Kind of a cousin of Washington “Football Team”, but obviously for different reasoning. I remember when the New Orleans Hornets played a couple of seasons in Oklahoma City after Katrina they were called Oklahoma City or a combined New Orleans / Oklahoma City. Along with the basketball motif, the owner of the Sacramento River Cats, who will share their stadium with the A’s, also owns the Sacramento Kings who have bounced around quite a bit in their history including individual seasons that were spent being shared by Omaha and Kansas City. This is probably a run through for Sacramento to see if they might have the chops for MLB, at least from the owner’s standpoint. I think I have dedicated way too much gray matter to trivial sports trivia. I should read a book.

I think another aspect is that Hinch is pushing a lot of bench buttons but maybe also hoping that a current platoon or two might eventually turn into more of a starting situation that someone takes the opportunity and runs with. So maybe a bit of an extended spring training so to speak? But the games count now, so, yeah, taking advantage of those winnable games while trying to see if some questions get answers is definitely a positive.