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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.

They work for a white-dominated system in a red hat state. They got to where they were because they play ball. They’re not going to break ranks. I would be interested in seeing you reply to Tiger337’s stats post.

As if. What is almost certain to happen is that Congress will completely ignore such calls, since Hunter Biden’s laptop will be considered far too important to divert resources from. But it will be addressed by their state media, and it could take the form of any number of: killings of police by immigrants is a far larger problem; more white people are killed by police than black people so there is no racism problem; these thugs, particularly this Tyree character, are bringing it on themselves by being thugs; there are thousands of police departments where this doesn’t happen, so the whole thing is overblown, and commie Democrats and their lackey commie media hate police which is why they talk about stuff like this instead of open borders and Brandon’s failing economy. In other words: fire up the gaslight, there’s work to do!

This is like saying American slavery wasn’t built and sustained on white racism because African men handed over people from enemy tribes to ships run exclusively by white slavers, and yeah, there were white slaves in 1630, so there.

They can’t tell me it can’t be racist because it’s black cops on black civilian. If it were black cops on white civilian, this would not have happened. If it were white cops on white civilian, this almost certainly would not have happened. If it were white cops on black civilian, this definitely would have happened. If it were white cops on anyone, they would be put on paid suspension, not fired and put into jail. They can’t tell me there was no racism involved here.

What, you don’t remember Democrats snarking that Scalise was shot because he was having a hissy fit spat with his gay lover baseball teammate? 😏

This is very much in the same vein as, when Republicans doing something awful is at the top of the news cycle, their media apologists complain about "both sides", but when it's not in the news cycle, it's 100% all about Democrats.

At the time I posted, which was before reading microline’s replies, it seemed within the realm of possibility that had we called Thompson up, he could have done up to and including as well for us as he did for the Dodgers, and that might have been worth a decent enough return to make a deal with someone. A flyer pitcher and a flyer hitter, maybe. Concluding that he was terrible before this year so there was no possibility he could have been any good to us this year seemed to me a baffling position to dig your heels in on. In the case of Trayce Thompson as explained by microline, all of this is now moot.

This closes the loop for me regarding the Thompson case. He didn't want to play for the Tigers because the Dodgers expressed interest, because really, during the Avila era, who would? Since that appears to eliminate every possibility except (a) do whatever deal you could with the Dodgers or (2) let Thompson's opt out date arrive so he could be sprung and sign with the Dodgers anyway, that reduces the Tigers' leverage to zero. Cash considerations became the best they could get in return. Do I have that straight? Hypothetical: what if the Tigers tried to promote Thompson anyway, for who knows what reason? (It's a hypothetical, so the idea doesn't have to be defended with an actual reason.) Would Thompson have left the org because ain't no way he's stepping foot in the Comerica home team locker room no how? And if he were to accept such a promotion, would the opt out date clause expire and eliminate his ability to jump to the Dodgers at his discretion? I'm interested in the technicals of such a case, basically because I have never heard of this kind of situation before. Two last questions: is there a technical difference between "cash considerations" and "cash"? And if you had to guess, how much in "considerations" do you think the Tigers might have received forThompson?

Of course I agree with that idea, but even though he was another player of a certain type, he was still a different player who was raking in an unusual way and thus at least worth a try. Just slotting him into the lineup for a look-see would not have been the same thing over and over again. EDIT: I replied with this before reading Microline’s input. In this specific case his reply makes total sense, but absent those specifics, in general, letting him go only because he wasn’t great in prior years, without trying him for a possible good flip, makes no sense to me.

Of course, and anyone who saw that Thompson could not have possibly done anything for us because he's a 31 year old OF with a career WAR through that date of 0 and OPS+ of around 95 is equally full of crap. He was definitely worth a try, a literal no risk move since the cost of trying him would have been essentially nothing, with a potential payout of at least some decent depth pieces. It could have been as close to getting something for nothing as anyone could get. I don't understand why you're fighting so hard against that idea.

I think a Trump-Greene ticket would go below 40 nationally. Although they would still win a bunch of confederate states.

Just because black cops kill black suspects doesn't mean that racism isn't a factor. That's what the culture of policing in America has led to.

Trayce Thompson earned a shot to play in Detroit, instead was shipped off to LA where he put up two wins in less than half a season with a .268/.364/.537 line, consistent with how he did in Toledo, and we got nothing out of it. It's comical how some people think that's a big nothing.

So we could have called him up, he could have raked for us, we could have flipped him at the deadline to a contender and gotten a decent return for him, but instead we took "cash considerations" for him and got basically nothing in terms of roster improvement? That almost sounds like professional malpractice on Al Avila's part. Am I missing something here?