casimir

Biden is too old. But Trump is too senile. And that's basically what we have to pick from for the next presidential term.

Drunk Uncle Tom Gores is in attendance. Fortunately he has not tried to check into the game yet.

That speed he has can be lethal. I mentioned the other day he seems to be using it more judiciously whereas in the past he allowed his speed to get himself into bad positions. It’s probably just a matter of experience, what worked in college might need adjustment in the the pros. He’s having a good stretch here. So fun to see.

Fun game so far. I’ve never seen a sports team wear the “Hello, My Name Is….” stickers as a part of their jerseys, but it might be helping the Pistons today.

It’s been a painful era to be a Piston fan. I mean, the front offices have gotte what they’ve deserved for the most part. But, damn, just by law of averages, at some point this team should sniff .500, even if by accident, right?

Yes, that’s a slight technical obstacle.

Or maybe today.

Just wait until May.

His bat bloomed later in his career. He wasn’t a consistent over 100 OPS+ until his early 30s. He played mostly 3B and LF for the Tigers? I’d have him leadoff as a 3B vs RHPs and leadoff as a LF/RF vs LHPs this season. Any arguments against it?

I don’t remember the Yankees. I do remember Baltimore had interest in Whitaker and Cleveland had interest in Trammell. What a gut punch that could have been with the Tigers keystone combo split up to New York and Cleveland.

Well, nobody gave me a chance, they’re pretty much already listed. 😆 But to a couple of your other points: I would consider drafting as asset management although you may be a little more ambivalent about it? OK, not a big deal. You mentioned the 2nds to get rid of guys. We’ll agree the 2nds aren’t as valuable as 1sts (assuming the picks aren’t very end of 1st and very beginning of 2nd). But I don’t think these are just throw away items. Maybe I am misreading your valuation of 2nds or maybe we do disagree on their value, I don’t know.

Yup. Even if this team takes off a bit under the efforts of the kids, there’s been so much wasting of assets along the way that it’s time to move on. But as a show of appreciation, Weaver can take the city jerseys with him.

Well, they’ve got a new AD, so any ties that bound before aren’t necessarily there. In other words, Day better beat Michigan next season, Chris Holtman better start winning some basketball games this season. Taking a broader view of college football, the head coach role seems to be morphing more into a GM type role. I wonder if we’ll see a split of duties soon with a position added to teams’ staffs. One person will be on charge of roster accumulation/retention and the other will be the more traditional game play stuff.

Not sure. I don’t get out much.

That bat would be glorious at the top of this team’s lineup.

College football is getting sillier and siller.

The SAT is going completely digital. I can't wait to hear all of the carping and complaining from older generations about the youth of today not knowing how to use a #2 pencil, a sharpener, and a scantron.

"They don't think it be like it is, but it do." --Oscar, 3:16

Oh, absolutely, multiple ball handlers over one primary as much as possible. I wasn't trying to infer moving Cunningham off of the ball all of the time. I'll admit, I don't know where/if any of the new guys fit into the backcourt. Heck, I'm trying to handwrite out a flow chart to see who left, who's been waived, who remains on the roster. But I'd like to see 2 of Cunningham, Ivey, and Sasser in the backcourt at all times going forward. To your point about Thomas and Dumars, can this trio become a Thomas, Dumars, Johnson type of rotation? It's a tall ask given there are two hall of famers in there, but can the current version function in the same way with each other and with the other 3 on the court?

I don’t know. I understand what you’re saying, but that also implies that Gores has rationally thought this through as an actual plan. The phrase “rationally thought” is tricky here.

Gallinari is released.

I think Ivey plays less out of control recently than he has in the past. I think he allowed his speed to get him into bad position too often before, maybe try and get to area or take a shot when it wasn’t there, forcing the issue. I don’t he does that as often, I think he’s been more judicious about using that speed, whether in quick bursts, or down the court. Cunningham has improved his 3FG% this season. He’s still a bit below league average, but it is improving. So, if he plays off of the ball a bit more, perhaps he can help space the floor as well and open up the lane for Duren in the post or the ball handler to drive.

Hopefully someone packs his belongings for him. If he has to do it, he'll probably miss the box.

I like that PECOTA plays the sim through the schedule and goes with those results. You can see that the run differential isn't necessarily correlated to winning percentage. On the other hand, FanGraphs seems to take the run differential and apply the win loss record based on that. I didn't calculate any team just to check, but it looks like the forecasted record might be pythagorean. The noticeable result is that FanGraphs seems to have a tighter range of win loss records. All teams are within 64 and 97 wins. PECOTA has a couple of teams above 100 wins and a couple of teams below 60 wins. Its just kind of fun to look at. We can poke holes at the results and how they were arrived at. Playing time is a good variable to criticize. There are still a few free agents to be factored in, teams have spring training to get through, there will be injuries, trades, disappointments, surprises, etc, before teams break camp. And even then, these forecasting systems can have better inputs to use, but there will be more injuries, trades, disappointments, surprises, etc, throughout the season to skew the actuals from the projections.