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Storm the Field

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Everything posted by Storm the Field

  1. Official release this morning was 4.9%. JPM was pretty close with their final prediction of 4.7% yesterday. Markets unhappy of course.
  2. One thing I learned at Game 6 on Sunday: The Butcher stall in Sec. 224 is one of the best dining values in the stadium. 2 meat plate with 2 sides was only something like $27 and actually pretty damn decent BBQ for being at a concession stand. Generous serving of brisket and half a chicken, roasted brussels sprout/potato mix and mac and cheese was more than enough food for wife and I to split.
  3. If I'm reading this right, at 10 PM Sunday night, the "feels like" will be 37 in Austin but 78 in Houston. https://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=gfs&p=sfctapp-imp&rh=2023102412&fh=135&r=conus
  4. Utterly Irrelevant in a post detailing why the season was frustrating to watch.
  5. Had some time to collect my thoughts and get the mourning out of the way. Despite once again making it to the ALCS, this season just wasn't all that much "fun", IMO. 1. 90 wins is far less than we've gotten use to since the dynasty run started. We were in 1st for just 19 days this entire season. Spent 90% of the year chasing. 2. The awful home record. I looked back at the schedule and the Astros won just 5 of the 15 games I attended at MMP. It got noticeably worse in September and October. 3. Lack of clutch factor. We went 1-8 in extra innings and were under .500 in 1-run games. I don't know how many times we went into the 9th down by 1 or 2, put multiple runners on with less than 2 outs, and scored 0. We only had 4 walk-offs all year long. 4. Fucking injuries. Had to do without Altuve for 45% of the season and Alvarez for 30%. Lost 2/5 of our starting rotation in a 24-hour period. 5. Dusty's hardheaded nonsense and too many AB's taking by scrubs. Apart from his jackass refusal to play Diaz for no justifiable reason or hating Chas, nothing pissed me off more this year than when Dusty would make some incomprehensible decision based on a hunch or dream he had and then try and explain it with some made-up statistic. You'd look it up and he'd have the numbers ass backwards. Like he'd pinch hit somebody "I feel like he had a better chance against (insert lefty pitcher)" and the numbers would be 2-12 lifetime with 8 k's vs that pitcher and a career 0.458 OPS against LHP. Corey Julks got 323 plate appearances and put up 0.3 WAR. Hensley got 93 for -0.7. Kessinger, Madris, and Singleton got another 150 and were worth -0.8. That's 550+ PA accounting for -1.2 WAR.
  6. 157 days until we take on Yankees on Opening Day. I'm done thinking about baseball until Spring Training is a few weeks out. Doubt I'll watch more than a few innings (if any) of the World Series. Don't really give shit when Astros aren't playing. Only thing I care about between now and then is not hearing that we've offered Dusty a chance to come back for another shot in 2024.
  7. Good lord, Crane should personally issue refunds. That's genuinely hard to believe.
  8. Holy shit, not a single crooked number. Anyone got a tally of LOB during those 36 innings? Gotta be at least 25, right?
  9. Dusty needs to retire. If he insists on continuing to manage at 75, let some rebuilding or not-even-trying team have him take the reins. I want somebody born after the dawn of color TV filling out lineup cards for the Astros. Maldy needs to retire. Not a team on earth that needs a 37-year old 0.2 WAR catcher with .190 average and the mobility of an arthritic sloth. Brantley needs to retire. Love ya, Uncle Mike, but he'll turn 37 early next season and is washed. Also, pretty clear Meyers is not going to take up a major step forward and be an everyday starter for us. Dubon is a quality bench guy, but that's it. Sign/trade a legit starting OF. Garcia won't be back for a long while. You can't count on LMJ being ready or staying healthy next year. France overperformed and is probably not a legit MLB starter. Brown is a work in progress. We need 1-2 more real starters in the rotation. Hope and pray that Pena can recover from this horrendous power slump and that Tucker's abysmal post-season was a fluke. Wrap Altuve and Alvarez in protective bubble wrap until Opening Day.
  10. Genuinely amazing to me that we made it Game 7 of the ALCS despite having a losing home record that got exponentially worse with each passing week since September. We're going to end this up batting well under .200 with RISP during home games this post-season.
  11. Yep. Hopefully the old coot just retires. Jesus Christ, he'll turn 75 next year.
  12. My last 3 games at MMP have been 9/24, when we got swept by KC, ALDS Game 2, and last night. Been real fun spending 3 of my last 5 Sundays watching us flounder. I think my in-person record for the year is something like 4-11. I'm not setting foot in that stadium again until the College Classic in March. Don't care what happens tonight. Just saw a stat that we've had 28 sellouts at MMP this year. We're 7-21 in those games. How can a team save its absolute worst baseball for its biggest home crowds? It boggles the mind.
  13. Interesting, as there's not much overlap between the two's operations. More of a pure portfolio expansion than a consolidation play. CVX is getting Hess's position as one of the primary Bakken operators and their 30% stake in XOM's huge project off the coast of Guyana.
  14. Necro bump. Newcomer to anime at almost 40. Before this past year, the closest I had ever come was the Castlevania series on Netflix. Have started off with what seem to be 3 of the all-time greats. Glad that I waited until now to start the following, as it would have been brutal to wait 2-3 years between seasons: Have watched all episodes of Demon Slayer that have been released. Loved it. Wish there were 100 more episodes already released. Caught up to all Jujutsu Kaisen episodes that have been released, with the exception of this past Thursday's. If Demon Slayer is ranked 1A, then JK is a very close 1B for me. Just started Season 2 of Attack on Titan. Took a little get into, but got hooked after a few. Glad to see I have something like 60 more episodes remaining. Spoiled some of what's to come by reading character bios trying to remember everyone's name. Looks like it gets incredibly complex.
  15. I've never been more convinced, Jose Altuve is some sort of supernatural being, gifted to the city of Houston by some force beyond our reckoning. Look at him. That man has no reason to be one of the best baseball players of all time. And yet; somehow, he is. Like an anime character, his ultimate form emerges when all seems lost. My biggest complaint of this season has been that "the magic is just not there." So many games this year we went into the 9th down a run or two, got guys on, and just couldn't bring them home. Tonight, I'm as wrong as it gets.
  16. Matt Heafy from Trivium has a weekly, hour-long show on Liquid Metal that's pretty great for finding new metal bands or new jams from bands you've previously heard of. Good shit from yesterday's show. I know some of you hate clean vocals, so just stick with it past the Deftones-esque intro to 1:00 or so. Reminds me of a slightly heavier Gojira.
  17. After a lengthy stretch of really nice days dating back to last Friday, Houston's got some rather "yucky" weather on tap. Unseasonably hot, dry and sunny today and tomorrow, then clouds, humidity/rain and high in the mid-80's/lows in the mid-70's through next Saturday. Might be another ~10 days until our next dry day with a high below 80 and a low below 70.
  18. Got the new stand delivered and set up at a promising location. Heading back out Saturday to clear out some shooting lanes and finish getting its feeder set up. Only got it about halfway done before we had to get back to town. Should end up being a good feeder for the money, but it was a bitch to put together. Next time, we'll probably just spring for the extra $200 or so to buy a fully-built model that we just have to pop on a trailer. Dad also fixed a broken control unit on an otherwise functional feeder at one of the existing stands, so we'll get that popped back on, fill it up with corn, and get it back on schedule. If all goes according to plan, I should get back to town Sunday evening having 2 more stand/feeder combos ready for the season than today.
  19. Most old landmen are also unrepentant alcoholics, in my experience. When I first got out of law school and went and ran title for a year, used to get a kick at the old veteran coots that "worked" maybe 20 hours/week, billing $400/day or more and complaining about politics.
  20. September retail sales came in much stronger than expected. 0.7% vs 0.3%. Decent chance that Q3 GDP will come in above 4%. Current market consensus is 3.8%. Fed's GDPNow tracker is currently at 5.1%, but will update later today.
  21. 49 outside when I woke up this morning. That's the lowest temp that Houston has seen since mid March. Was 67 inside the house. Looks like today will be pretty much perfect. Tomorrow and Thursday 10 degrees warmer, but still nice. Even Friday, when it's supposed to hit low 90's again, looks to be pretty low humidity and will cool down to 60's after sunset. Rest of weekend is pretty unremarkable. High 80's and overcast. Stays warm with decent rain chances next week. All in all, pretty typical October weather for SETX. A handful of days that remind you of late summer, a handful of perfect Autumn days, and the rest are just average "warmer than you'd prefer but at least it's not in the mid-90's anymore..."
  22. 17 patrol officers and jail staffers charged in wide-ranging investigation. Numerous others still under investigation. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2023/10/12/multiple-broward-sheriffs-employees-facing-indictments-over-pandemic-relief-fund-misuse/
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