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I really like how the Super Bowl goes basically right up to the report date now. Only two days off between the two sports.

At least Evan Petzold has been a quick convert. Almost from jump, every article he's writing now uses the phrase "control the strike zone", and every pitching and hitting line in his articles now include strikeouts and walks.

That’s why when they do robot umpires, they’re almost certainly going to treat the plate two-dimensionally, probably the middle plane that’s 8-1/2” equidistant from front and back. That would eliminate both the yakker clipping the bottom front and bouncing in the dirt for a called strike, and the ridiculous eephus coming in over the batter’s head and scraping the top back for a called strike.

For all his fire, personality, and World Series heroics, Kirk Gibson was never on an All-Star team, although, asterisk, he did turn down two invites. Hey, it was the 80s. Tony Phillips never made one, either. He might be the guy with the highest career WAR in the All-Star Game era who didn’t make one. He also got MVP votes in only one season, for us in 1993, when he finished 16th. The curse of the super-duper utility guy. He probably played more games at more non-battery positions than any player ever. No one knew just what the hell he was. One other thing about Phillips is how late he blossomed. I drafted him for an OOTP team. I had to wait a lo-o-o-ong time for that ship to come in.

Chris McCosky still carrying a big, bright, flaming torch for Hackin' Harold. Sorry to break it straight to you, Chrissie, but boyfriend's gone, and he ain't never comin' back. 💔

Interestingly, the tease on McCosky's Google page reads in a rather more alarmist manner than the actual tweet does, although the article does run along the same alarmist lines as this: I wonder what the technical reason is behind that?

Someone is all in a dither and is clutching his pearls about the new direction ...

Well, they're all the same, aren't they? Just another bunch of hacks who would pledge unquestioning loyalty.

What is your take on the FBI vs the intelligence community?

Yup. Total phony baloney.

Funny you would say this—for years I would avoid watching movies because I figured I just didn't have the time to devote two hours straight to it. Then I recently really noticed how my wife can start and stop and restart a TV show effortlessly. So I tried it—and it's great. I thought I would somehow lose the thread of what I'm watching, but I found that I repick it up just fine. I'm now starting to catch up on a bunch of movies I'd been avoiding for time reasons.

AP is all over it, @Biff Mayhem:

I'm with you on that. Although that makes it just one more thing to have to monitor. We may even forget about it after a while. It might become like that rule where if a fielder throws their glove at a ball and hits it, runners are awarded three bases. When was the last time you saw that?

I thought the rule was stupid when I first heard about it, and I’m still not sure I don’t think that, but as with the three-pitch minimum rule for relievers, I’m sure I’ll come around to being fine with it. Re the strategy part, I don’t know that it will result in any change because (I assume) a runner is already leading off the maximum amount he can get away with on every pitch anyway. Not necessarily to set up a steal, but to shorten the distance to run so if a ball is hit, they increase their chances of being safe, if ever so slightly. (And baseball is nothing if not a game of ever-so-slightly.) I can’t think of a situation where a runner is not leading off to his maximum, except in situations where he must protect his hold on first base in a game situation where losing that base would be much worse than gaining an extra base would benefit (e.g., down a run and two outs in the ninth). And in a case like that I can’t see him leading off an extra six or twelve or whatever inches after the second throw over because, again, the cost of getting picked off would be too great. There might be guys early on doing what you say, but once a few of them get picked off for their foolishness, I would bet that would stop. So I see this as less an incentive to steal bases than it is to limit endless throws to first which, I agree with you, happens hardly ever anyway.

Yes, I umpired little league games around the time I was 19 or 20. (Not actually “Little League”, since Warren didn’t, and apparently still doesn’t, belong to that organization.) I clearly remember the first inning I ever worked. I had a strike zone that was armpits to knees I was going to call. The pitcher was missing close up and down and I was calling it by that book. After the kid walked the first three batters on 12 pitches, I saw the folly of my ways and called an audible: strike zone was now nose to toes. It worked. They griped, but it got the bats off their shoulders.

You’re right. He agrees with the numbers, which undermines his core argument, and that’s good enough.

People here may not believe me, but I have never been in either Facebook or Twitter jail. I use FB pretty much for what you say here: keeping in touch with friends, keeping up with SABR people, or sharing and consuming baseball posts. (I’m in a bunch of baseball groups.) Every once in a while a right winger baseball friend will post some stupid red hat meme and I’ll reply with a snarky one-liner, but that’s as far as it goes. Or I might like someone else’s snarky one-liner reply to a red hat meme. But that’s it—I don’t want to use FB for pointless back-and-forths. (That’s what MTF is for!) Ninety-five percent of my FB posts are replies; I really only post when I’m traveling with my wife. And I use Twitter basically only to keep up with news. Facebook has actually been a huge net gain for me. I have rekindled so many friendships with people 20 and 30 and 40 years in my past, which obviously could never have happened in the 20th Century.

I was working nights at a machine shop on the 530pm to 6am shift. We had a hot job that required 24/7 and they didn’t want to create a third shift just for that. I woke up at about 1130am to all three networks pre-emptying programming for it. Also, I remember the date because it’s my brother’s birthday.

Why are you upset?

I think Avila was behind the hiring of Scott Coolbaugh (and Jose Cruz Jr.), and Hinch led the hiring of George Lombard.

Man, I’d forgotten how good that guy was once he played for a team that knew what to do with him.

What do you think of Tiger337’s data post? Seems to undercut one of your core arguments.

FWIW, Fangraphs did an article a few years ago about at which point various stats attain enough stablization to basically call it a skill and not just luck. Here’s where they came out on that back then: “Stabilization” Points for Offense Statistics: 60 PA: Strikeout rate 120 PA: Walk rate 240 PA: HBP rate 290 PA: Single rate 1610 PA: XBH rate 170 PA: HR rate 910 AB: AVG 460 PA: OBP 320 AB: SLG 160 AB: ISO 80 BIP: GB rate 80 BIP: FB rate 600 BIP: LD rate 50 FBs: HR per FB 820 BIP: BABIP “Stabilization” Points for Pitching Statistics: 70 BF: Strikeout rate 170 BF: Walk rate 640 BF: HBP rate 670 BF: Single rate 1450 BF: XBH rate 1320 BF: HR rate 630 BF: AVG 540 BF: OBP 550 AB: SLG 630 AB: ISO 70 BIP: GB rate 70 BIP: FB rate 650 BIP: LD rate 400 FB: HR per FB 2000 BIP: BABIP This is from 2015 but I would guess the numbers are pretty similar now. I would also think that barrels would be similar to fly ball rate on stabilization.

Sure, if he’s in control of the coaching situation. But since it’s likely that it as Avila was hired Coolbaugh and imposed him on Hinch, it’s hard to control the direct report who has the ear of your boss.

This may or may not mean anything, but Cameron Maybin had Riley Greene among his top ten center fielders on MLB Network’s top ten right now show.