gehringer_2

yeah - the world isn't what it once was advetising wise, but I think advertising can still be helpful, but the trick with ads is that while the side that makes them may see their logic as devastating, that may only be true because of what they already believe is true. That ad may run like water off a duck's back for the people whose minds it's aimed at changing. I think a lot of the Lincoln project ads from the last cycle were in that catagory.

agreed.

right - and on an overall basis, if you just run linear regression on BA, OBP and OPS vs Runs scored across a team, OPS is the best correlate, which proves that OPS must contribute more to RBI in total when considering all batting situations.

Not having much of a fast ball to fall back on, Matt gets in trouble in a hurry when his finesse falters or a couple guys guess right sitting on the slow curve. 'Instant Runs' as Ernie would say.

just for comparison, IIRC when Cabrera was good, his RBI % was in the low 20's. Logically, RBI% is mostly a corelate of batting average - all things being equal, if you have a high batting average you're going to have a high RBI%, but you still get some variation in RBI% between guys with similar BAs. And that makes some sense because it's clear watching play that some hitters good enough to have some control over their ABs, like Cabrera was, may be altering their approach with a man on 2nd. OTOH it's also logical to assume that some guys must do worse with the added pressure. It alwasys seemed pretty clear Miguel altered his approach to put the ball up the midde with RSIP, and that probably drove some marginal increase in his RBI% compared to a guy who didn't. I remember once attempting to normalize Prince Fielder vs Cabrera's RBI% vs their BA's and at least between those two there was a pretty good residual signal that Miguel's reliability with RISP was better than Prince's. Also re BA. We know OPS is the much better measure of total batting value than BA - that's not an argument. But the case where you might care about BA vs OBP as the contribution to OPS is with that man on 2nd. A walk in that situation contributes as much to your OPS as single, but the single probably gets the guy home.

It was civilian neo-con intellectuals, as opposed to military leadership, that lead the charge into places like Iraq. It's been civilian leadership (if you can call it that) that is driving Russia's militarism. It is interesting how military vs civilian political leadersip dynamics vary across national 'cultures'. The histories of some parts of world have been quite different from other parts in that regard - say Egypt, SE Asia and S and C Americas (lots of direct military rule) on one hand vs W. Europe, N. America, South Africa, China on the other.

Apparently Austin Meadows, who had been staying with the team, has left the team and gone back home to Fla.

TBD better have his **** together for tomorrow.

This. And just to put the cap on this discussion - I would assume that everyone read Chafin's response to Petzold during the Atlanta series but if not, he said that he would have been glad to come back to Det if their offer had been as good.

Team looks better when 4 guys in the lineup all get on base twice in one game.

Torkelson with the concentration lapse. Scooped a few milliseconds too soon.

Torkelson getting close to 200 PA at an 800 OPS. Other than a blip 0 for Philly, he's been pretty solid since May1. But since admittedly his April was terrible, it's taking time for the season numbers to look decent.

Good one.

Dumb

McKinstrey with a quick start to that DP. Still wish he went to his right better.

The Tigers used to have a team with too many DH's starting in the field. Now we have too many middle relievers starting.

Tigers get Boyd off the hook. Does Hinch dare send him back him out there for one more?

Nice bat work by Carpenter to just serve that pitch after he probably guessed wrong. Then Javy being Javy and hitting a pitch no-one has a right to.

Same player as ever.

one more at Toledo then pencil him in.

Lineup is just too short.

yeah - we played a lot of handball up through HS - mostly because it was nearly cost free and in the city walls are not hard to find.

I wouldn't put too much stock on any comparison numbers, more interesting to see year to year changes at each institution. At least those would likely be based on the same accounting systems. The other thing to note is that these say they are revenue numbers, but profitability is the real key to program health. If a system is spending $100M on fundraising to bring in $105M, their revenue may look a lot better than another school with less income but also lower expenses.

Miggy's favorite line is 'do my job,' If he believes that then you'd think he has a sense of working within the hierarchy, and to be fair, I can't remember him ever saying word one to bad mouth any current or even past Tiger manager. I mean sure, he probably thinks, and is probably correct, that other players/coaches can't teach him much/anything, so he wouldn't look up to them in that sense = agreed there. But OTOH, he appears to be respectful of the role of his manager in the organizational sense if you take 'look up' in that meaning.

I see it as all a matter of degree. The human mind always wants to fit things into some kind of consistency. It's basically an analogy machine - sorting which things do or don't match this, and if not must match up with that. On the other hand, in the physical reality in which we exist, all defined relationships breakdown at boundaries. At one end, matter completely disappeares as you zoom into fine enough grain, while at the other end the Universe itself dissolves into contradiction at the first contemplation of its boundary. Between those limits the human mind spends its time trying to put things in boxes. Nothing ever quite fits in the boxes perfectly, but some things fit much better than others, and many things do fit at least well enough to have allowed humanity to understand enough to survive up to the present. But the limits of appliation of every human concept are always still there at all the edges, waiting for the unsuspecting to fall off the edge into error and failure, and also engendering the same terror that bedeviled 15th century sailors that should they get too far away from the seas of their comfortable beliefs, they would either land themselves on dangerous terra incognita, or worse, fall off the edge of the world.