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Beau Vine

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Posts posted by Beau Vine

  1. 1 hour ago, deadshank said:

    I hear you.  Outside of compensation for work provided, just passing the time of day with nothing to do other than clown around all day seems to play right into the devil's hands.

    Retirement age is not to far off for me.  If I just stone cold retired and had nothing to look forward to other than playing golf all of the time or some other activity like that I think I would go insane.  As of now, I would prefer to work until I just physically can't do it anymore.

    I like working.  Work provides structure, goals and a sense of acheivment.

     

    I don't like working, but I couldn't agree more with everything else you said.

    Work sucks, but it's good for me.

  2. Yeah, they've done an outstanding job of handling Profar.  Maybe he learned something from that?

     

    I guess the other thing is that sending keeping Calhoun down until 5/3 is actually the smart thing to do.  The Rangers aren't going anywhere this season and it's obvious.  Calhoun breaking camp with them wouldn't change that.  It would be stupid to trade a chance for 72 vs 74 wins (if they could even get there) for a season of arbitration.

    I don't understand why JD is offended by a writer suggesting that he's doing something smart.  

  3. Eno Sarris of theathletic, who used to be fangraphs' stat/performance guru:

    (Missing blanks are the tweets you can see above)

     

    Quote

    It’s an open secret inside the game: Pine tar, and other grip substances, can help a pitcher increase their spin rate. I’ve been asked not to write about it by more than a few pitchers, but at this point there are two pressing reasons to have this discussion.

    One is that Trevor Bauer recently pointed out that Gerrit Cole’s spin rate is up dramatically with his new team. The Cleveland righty made mention of the link between grip substances and spin in a response to Driveline Baseball’s Kyle Boddy fielding a question about the Astros spin in general.

    This led to a response from Lance McCullers, predictably, because it does border on the accusation of cheating across Houston’s entire staff.

    This part of the discussion is overstated. Yes, Gerrit Cole’s increase in spin is remarkable, and strange within the context of how spin normally ages, and how sticky it is year to year. You don’t normally see jumps as large as his. But the rest of the Astros’ staff has not shown this kind of jump.

    In order to see this possible effect, I looked up the spin rate of all pitchers before they got to Houston, and then once they joined the team for more than 20 innings. Pitchers who were with the Astros before they left weren’t counted, because presumably they could have taken the trick with them to their new team.

    Player Non Houston Spin Houston Spin
    Justin Verlander 2535 2591
    Charlie Morton 2103 2244
    Gerrit Cole 2165 2332
    Doug Fister 1971 1994
    Scott Kazmir 2274 2208
    Average 2210 2274

    On aggregate, the change in spin is tiny. The changes to Justin Verlander’s spin are not significant. Charlie Morton’s spin increase is interesting, but spin is related to velocity, and when Morton’s velocity was up in his abbreviated season with the Phillies, his spin rate was also up. So really, his spin was up to around 2200 right before the Astros picked him up.

    Gerrit Cole? Yes, his spin change is remarkable. His release point is up a bit, his velocity is up a bit, and there’s a chance these things are related to spin, even if Bauer and Driveline have tried repeatedly to prove those links in a lab situation but have not yet done so.

    It might be tempting to point out that Houston has the highest spin rate in the league, but that’s also not very damning. When the team got Collin McHugh, they mentioned spin rate as a reason, and on the same list of high-spin pitchers that produced McHugh sat Charlie Morton. It’s very hard to prove that a team is using pine tar to increase spin, particularly when that team has already been selecting for high-spin pitchers in the past.

    Maybe the Astros are like any other team, a collection of pitchers mostly doing their own thing. Still, the second reason to care about this is general fairness around the league.

    The anecdotal link between pine tar and spin rate is strong, and most pitchers I’ve talked to off the record about this in the past two years have confirmed that there is a real connection. One even blamed the increase in blisters on the increased use of pine tar. But if this link is real, that suggests that some pitchers are gaining an unfair advantage over their competitors.

    And now we have a signature moment and some data to look at, before and after. Bauer referenced research at Driveline here:

    He also has talked repeatedly of showing proof — and perhaps these numbers from a lab he works at won’t be taken as gospel. What if we had a pitcher, in the middle of this controversy, trying to show us the effect of pine tar on spin rate? What if Bauer himself put some pine tar on his fingers for the first inning of the last game? What if that’s what the big hint is here from Boddy?

    Here’s the spin rate on Bauer’s four-seam fastball in all of his first innings over his career. His first inning in his last start is highlighted in red.

     

    BAuerspin2-1024x627.png

    In that first inning, Bauer averaged a 2600 RPM on his fastball, up from his average of 2280 RPM on his career. That’s more than a standard deviation, and as you can see, a clear outlier from his past spin rates. He’s only twice averaged even 2400 in the first inning before. He never averaged 2500 in an inning before. And here’s one inning of 2600+, before returning, the very next inning, to his customary ~2300 RPM.

    Boddy declined to comment, and we’ve reached out to Bauer but have not been able to speak to him yet. But there’s certainly a sequence of interesting events, paired with some preliminary evidence here. Plenty of smoke, if not necessarily centered around the Astros.

    While enforcing the pine tar rules may be a pain the butt for pitchers everywhere, in the interest of fairness, this link needs to be affirmed and dealt with. All signs point to a link between grip substances and spin rate, and even if most pitchers know about this, selective enforcement of rules is unfair to pitchers everywhere — whether or not they take advantage of the pine tar, they may find their team on the receiving end of a challenge on the field.

    After all, “sure it’s against the rules but everyone does it and nobody really gets mad until it’s a big game or the pitcher is too obvious about it” is too vague and lengthy even for the mythic book of unwritten rules, let alone baseball’s actual rule book.

    Pine tar matters. Spin rate is good for pitchers. Pine tar increases grip and looks like it leads to more spin. It’s against the rules. Who knows who uses it more than anyone else, but that doesn’t really matter in the end. Either baseball needs to let everyone do it, or nobody.

     

    • Like 1
  4. 3 hours ago, Goo Punch said:

    Brewers RP Josh Hader (Knebel’s backup) has himself a night: 2.2 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 8 K, SV. Wow. First time in history that someone has K’d every out in a save of 2.2 IP or longer.

    You want to hear something more amazing?   7 of the Ks were either on 3 or 4 pitches.

    That's absurd.  That's like a major leaguer pitching to a high school team.  

  5. Stark:

    Quote

    The coldest, snowiest, rainiest, sloppiest April in modern baseball history is finally over. It’s enough to make you want to slip into a pair of shorts, lather on some sunscreen and head for a ballpark near you, isn’t it?

    So, what has the first month of this crazy season taught us? Glad you asked – because we’ve been contemplating that question. Now here come the answers, in this list of 10 Things We’ve Learned from this hellacious April of baseball we just survived:

    1. THE BALL IS NEVER IN PLAY (WELL, SEEMS LIKE IT)

    It was only a few weeks ago that we wrote about how much more fun baseball is to watch when something actually happens on that field below. But if you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably noticed that that concept we used to know as “action” is becoming a more endangered species than the Siberian tiger.

    That ominous trend was already well underway before this season ever started. But what April taught us is that not a darned thing has changed. Here are the terrifying first-month developments on the Disappearing Ball in Play front:

    MORE STRIKEOUTS THAN HITS: Did you know there has never been a season in history with more strikeouts than hits? But not for long, we’re afraid. So far, we’ve seen an astonishing 343 more whiffs than hits. And that’s shocking. As recently as three years ago, there were almost 5,000 more hits than strikeouts. Now, the hits are vanishing, and the swings and misses are multiplying. Help!

    STRIKEOUTS, STRIKEOUTS, MORE STRIKEOUTS: Until last year, there also had never been a season – ever – with 40,000 strikeouts. Now, there might never be a season with under 40,000. At the current rate, we’ll finish this season with 42,525 K’s (which computes, amazingly, to almost one per inning). That would be about 10,000 more whiffs than just 10 years ago. And 5,000 more than five years ago. And about 2,500 more than last season. Yikes! At least the air flow in the park will be picking up on hot summer nights.

    THREE TRUE OUTCOME UPDATE: Nearly 35 percent of all plate appearances (34.6 to be precise) now end with either a strikeout, a walk or a home run. Guess which way that percentage is trending? It was 33.5 percent last season. It was 32.3 the year before. It was 30.3 five years ago. Ten years ago, it was 28.8. Can anything reverse this pattern? Not that we’ve noticed.

    THE GRIM TOTALS: Finally, let’s translate all that for you. At this pace, there will be 2,000 fewer balls in play this season than last season. And 5,000 fewer than just three years ago. And 10,000 fewer than nine years ago. Wow. Every ball in play is a highlight video waiting to happen. Except now, it’s a highlight video that never gets a chance to happen.

    2. THE BASEMENT RACES ARE HOT!

    We’ve got a personal moratorium in place on applying that word “tanking” to this sport, unless there is no avoiding it. But whatever you want to call it, the race for the bottom of this sea has never been more heated.

    In case you hadn’t caught on to this, eight teams ended April on pace to lose 100 games – the Reds, Royals, Orioles, White Sox, Marlins, Padres Twins and Rangers. That would break the April record for that sort of thing in the wild-card era, previously set in these two seasons:

    Year 100-loss pace Finished with 100 losses
    2000 7 teams 0 teams
    2016 7 teams 1 team (Twins)

    As you can see, at least past Aprils haven’t proven to be real predictive of future 100-loss seasons. But the scary part this year is that it isn’t just the losses. It’s the lopsided losses.

    The Royals (on the road to minus-376) are actually on pace to break the modern record for worst run differential in a season (minus-349, by the 1932 Red Sox). And the Orioles (minus-312) also would wind up at negative-300-plus at this rate.

    So, how rare is that? Only two teams – the 2003 and 1996 Tigers – have finished at minus-300 or worse in the 57 seasons since the ’62 Mets set the standard for post-expansion ineptitude (with a 40-120 record and minus-331 run differential). And the last time more than one team pulled off the negative-300 trick in the same year was 1939 (A’s, Browns, Phillies). So, who cares how early it is. This is not a pretty picture. It feels – already – as if there are more hopelessly bad teams than in any season in recent memory.

    3. THE AL PLAYOFF TEAMS ARE ALREADY DECIDED

    Wait. What? The races are over? With like 135 games still to play? Oh, all right. Not technically.

    But going off what we’ve witnessed so far, would anyone bet against the Astros, Indians, Red Sox and Yankees making up four-fifths of the American League postseason field? Anyone?

    “The only race in that league is for the second wild card,” one NL executive said this week, with no equivocation whatsoever. “You’ve basically got the Angels, Mariners and Blue Jays in a battle for one spot. That’s the way it feels, anyway.”

    The Red Sox and Yankees – who hadn’t had nine-game winning streaks this close together since August 1939 – have taken turns playing the part of the hottest team in the league. The Astros look like they’re even better than the juggernaut that rode on the parade floats last fall. And while the Indians (15-12) haven’t even gotten heated up yet, the rest of their division is a combined 35 games under .500. So, in a league with such a minuscule middle class, those four teams all feel like locks – barring cataclysmic injuries.

    4. THE NL ISN’T FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT

    A month ago, the National League looked as if it were going to be just as predictable. But the Nationals, Dodgers, Diamondbacks, Mets and Pirates never got the memo.

    The Nationals started out 4-0. They’re 8-16 since. Once, they seemed like such a sure thing to blow away the NL East that a rival NL exec joked in spring training: “They’re not going to play a game that counts until Oct. 4.” Oops!

    Meanwhile, the Dodgers are already further out of first place (eight games) than they were at any time last year. They’ve lost Corey Seager for the year, and they’ve missed Justin Turner even more than they expected. They’d have laughed uproariously if you’d told them a month ago that Clayton Kershaw and Alex Wood would lose as many games in April (seven) as they lost all last season and that Kenley Jansen would blow more saves in April (two) than he blew all last year (one). But welcome to reality.

    It was about this time last year that the Dodgers awoke from a 10-12 funk to rip off a historic 81-24 streak over their next 105 games. Well, if they still have that next gear in them, they’d better not wait long to find it – because their good friends in Arizona might really be this good.

    The Diamondbacks just became the first NL team to win its first nine series of a season since Wildfire Schulte’s 1907 Cubs. Their rotation is averaging better than 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings. And their bullpen has been so dominant (.195 opponent average, just 17 extra-base hits allowed in 348 AB) that this team has only lost one game all year when it took a lead in the first three innings. So, with all due respect to the Pirates and Mets, the D-Backs are the most surprising team of 2018 – and the most dangerous.

    5. OZZIE ALBIES IS THE NEW JOSÉ ALTUVE

    He’s 5-foot-8, 165 pounds. He plays second base. But he isn’t José Altuve. So down in Atlanta, it is Ozzie Albies who has become baseball’s most eye-popping new mini-mite.

    His hitting coach, Kevin Seitzer, calls him “the strongest man, pound for pound, in the league.” And who’s to argue?

    All Albies did in March/April was lead the NL (or tie for the lead) in runs, hits, home runs, doubles, total bases and extra-base hits. That’s all. And his 22 extra-base hits (vs. just 12 singles) equaled the NL record for most extra-base hits before May 1.

    You might want to know that only three players ever led their league in hits at age 21 or younger: Ty Cobb, Al Kaline and Starlin Castro. And here’s the group that led in extra-base hits at 21 or younger: Cobb, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle and Sherry Magee.

    Got your attention yet? Thought so. Ozzie Albies. He’s a must-see attraction.

    6. DIDI GREGORIUS IS THE NEW A-ROD

    Here is Didi Gregorius’ month (and please allow us to employ a little poetic license in using the word “month” to describe what was actually April, plus three games in March):

    .327 AVG/.421 OBP/.735 SLUG/1.156 OPS/10 HR/30 RBIs/24 Runs

    Now, here’s a list of all the shortstops in the last 100 years who have ever had a calendar “month” like that:

    Alex Rodriguez (August 2003): .340/.454/.849/1.303/15 HR/31 RBIs/30 Runs

    End of list.

    We’re allowing the March/April technicality because A-Rod actually had more plate appearances in his real month (130) than Gregorius had in his hybrid month (121). But this isn’t about the definition of “month.” This is about the definition of “superstar.”

    “This guy’s a great defender,” said one scout. “He can run. And he can hit. And he’s hitting for power in a way nobody projected. And, most importantly, he’s changed his approach. He’s taking walks. He’s cutting down his strikeouts. So he’s an all-star. And if you’re an all-star in New York, you’re a superstar.”

    7. SHOHEI OHTANI IS NOT THE BABE – YET

    You thought Didi Gregorius had a tough assignment – to go out and be the next Derek Jeter? Well, that was nothing, compared with Shohei Ohtani’s mission: To go out and be the next George H. “Bambino” Ruth.

    So, here we are, a month into this mesmerizing experiment. And Ohtani has put together a phenomenal highlight reel – from his home run off the incumbent Cy Young (Corey Kluber) to his seven-inning, 12-strikeout, one-hitter against Oakland, from the four times he hit 101 mph on the mound last week to the 410-foot rocket he launched Friday off a 97-mph heater from Luis Severino.

    But where exactly is this season leading him? Is he going to make a significant impact as either a pitcher or a hitter – or both? Who the heck knows yet? He’s hitting .341/.383/.682 when the Angels let him DH. And he has punched out 26 hitters (vs. 14 hits allowed) in 20 1/3 IP. So, there’s no debate anymore about whether he has the talent to pull this off.

    Yet he is only on pace to get 272 plate appearances and pitch 114 innings. That’s enough to seal his fate as the most interesting man in the world of baseball, my friends. But is it enough to earn him a place as the greatest two-way player since the Babe? Hmm. We’ll have to get back to you on that one.

    8. THE ASTROS’ ROTATION IS RIDICULOUS

    Mark this down for future reference. The Houston Astros just might turn out to have the most dominating rotation ever.

    It’s a lot to ask for these dudes to crank out five more months like the month they just unfurled. But here is the pace they’re on – stacked up against the history they have a chance to make:

    STRIKEOUTS – Current pace: 1,220. The record: 1,066 (by the 2017 Indians).
    K/9 IP – Current pace: 10.82 per 9 innings. The record: 10.01 (by the same 2017 Indians).
    DOUBLE-DIGIT K’s – Current pace: 49 for the season. The record: 35 (by Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling’s 2001 Diamondbacks).
    HITS/9 IP – Current pace: just 6.36 per 9 innings. The record: 6.43 (by the 1968 Indians, in the Year of the Pitcher). Best in the AL since the mound was raised after that ’68 season: 7.04 (by Nolan Ryan’s 1972 Angels).
    STRIKEOUT MACHINES – Current pace: Four different Astros starters are averaging at least 10.8 strikeouts per 9 IP. The record: Only one team in history has had more than ONE qualifying starter compile a strikeout rate that high – the 2001 Johnson/Schilling Diamondbacks.

    So, are all these guys going to stay healthy enough to make all this history? Ha. That never happens. But we just wanted you to know it could – based on a March/April for the ages.

    9. THE YANKEES ARE GOING TO BREAK THE HR RECORD

    The all-time record for home runs in one baseball season is 264, by Jay Buhner’s 1997 Mariners. And this just in – if you’re currently enjoying the view of Mount Rainier or thumbing through your old Jay Buhner scrapbook:

    Savor that record while you can – because it has five more months to live.

    The Yankees somehow emerged from a cold, wet, hitter-unfriendly April on a pace to make 237 home-run trots. Which would be the sixth-most in the history of the Ruth/Gehrig/Mantle/Maris/Reggie/Etc. Yankees, incidentally. And they haven’t even gotten rolling yet.

    So they are going to pass those 1997 Mariners. Book it.

    Giancarlo Stanton hit 59 homers last year. He has hit five this year.

    Brett Gardner hit 21 last year. He has hit one this year.

    Greg Bird hit 12 in 189 at-bats last year, counting the postseason. He’s still on the disabled list this year.

    We’re just beginning to find out what Miguel Andújar, Tyler Austin and Gleyber Torres are capable of. Neil Walker hit 23 homers in two different big-league seasons. Jacoby Ellsbury once hit 32. They’re all on this team’s payroll.

    So, pretty soon, the sun will shine, the wind will blow out, and the baseballs will carry. You know what that means? It means the question isn’t whether these Yankees will make home-run history. It’s merely how much home-run history they will make.

    10. THE MOUND VISIT RULE IS WORKING

    Does anyone miss mound visits? Maybe Yadier Molina does. Maybe Willson Contreras does. But does anyone miss them who is just trying to watch a darned baseball game?

    Last year, your typical team averaged nearly four mound visits per game. So, your typical game averaged 7.41 visits by the two teams involved.

    This year, your typical team averages fewer than 1.9 mound visits per game. So, your typical game features an average of 3.90 by both teams. Big difference.

    It’s all because of the new rule limiting visits to six per game per team. We’re now more than 400 games into this season. And exactly once has any team used up all six visits in a nine-inning game. So, the sport has gone on, largely unfazed – and with almost no sign-stealing controversy (aside from one minor Javier Báez flare-up in an April 22 Cubs-Rockies game).

    So, when you take all those mound visits that don’t happen anymore and add them to the new rules tightening between-inning breaks, guess what’s happened? The average nine-inning game is nearly four minutes shorter than it was a year ago. That’s what. It has dropped from 3 hours, 5 minutes, 11 seconds to 3:01:34.

    You know what that teaches us? It’s proof of just how much dead time can be surgically removed from a baseball game and inflict almost no pain on pretty much anybody if it’s done correctly.

    It took one month of April baseball to teach that lesson. And here’s the moral of that story: It’s a sure sign that there will be more rules attacking more dead time coming to your favorite ballpark in the years to come. And the best news of all is, just about no one will shed a single tear.

     

    • Like 1
  6. On ‎4‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 2:51 PM, WBT said:

    From the comments of that article, about Trevor Bauer:

    zucxth0lwjpydn25fvhx.jpg

    Eats a double burrito like a rabbit eating a carrot is a wonderful line.

    Pretty sure Bauer has Asperger's or something similar.  I read an article a few years ago that said he had few friends in HS and usually ate lunch with his Physics teacher. 

    He's insanely smart and not real athletic and basically taught himself (with his dad, an engineer) how to optimize.  He graduated from HS a semester early and was immediately in the weekend rotation for UCLA.  

    When he was drafted, he told every team looking at him that he wanted to do things his way, and if that wasn't OK, don't draft him.  Of course, the team that drafted him fired their GM a couple of months later and cleaned house, so he got hung up in that.

    After he got traded, the major leaguer I know told me (at a spring training game) that every one hated him and that "several guys in that other dugout (Cleveland) have asked me what his deal is."

    I still really like him and hope he succeeds.  

  7. Quote

    After a two-year effort, workers at a Burgerville restaurant in Portland, Oregon, recently became the first fast-food outlet to vote to form a union.

    The chain, which prides itself on offering local produce and meats at its 42 restaurants in Oregon and southern Washington state, pledged to work with the new union. "We will navigate this new working relationship together in a positive, productive way," Beth Brewer, Burgerville's senior vice president of operations, said in a statement. "We are ready to support the nation's first unionized fast-food store."  

    The company also purchased a full-page newspaper ad and took to social media to put a positive spin on the results of an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB.

    "On Monday, one of our locations voted to become the first fast-food union in the country. This is new territory for us at Burgerville, but we're used to that. We've never been afraid of going first," the company said on social media under the heading: "This will be great."

    It will be great.

    Posted by Burgerville on Tuesday, April 24, 2018

    The April 23 results had the Burgerville Workers Union (BVWU), garnering 82 percent of the vote in support of forming a union following a two-day election. Another union vote set for May 12 and May 13 at a second Burgerville in suburban Portland.

    The workers resorted to the process of organizing under federal rules after two years of failed efforts -- including walkouts, protests and a boycott of Burgerville -- aimed at getting the company to discuss pay hikes and improved working conditions. 

    "The reason the union started is because workers frequently experience poverty and homelessness," said Emmett Schlenz, 24, a spokesperson for the union who moved to Oregon from Rhode Island two years ago. 

    A majority of Burgerville's 1,500 workers earn slightly above above the minimum wage, which stands at $11.25 an hour in Portland, said Schlenz, who has worked at Burgerville for nine months.

    "We've been making these demands for two years, and they've been largely ignored. They refused to talk to us as a union," he said.

    Burgerville, which says it pays an average hourly wage of $11.70 an hour, has reached out to the union to begin negotiations, according to the company.

    "There'd been a real reluctance on behalf of the employer to formally recognize the union -- it seems like they have turned a corner on that," said Kate Suisan, an attorney who counseled Burgerville workers on their dealings with the NLRB and the company.  

    Related video: Fast food's high-tech future

    Click to expand
     
    01:11
    01:42
    HQ
    Fast food's high-tech futur
     
     

     

    Some 3.6 million Americans work in the food industry, including fast-food, according to the Labor Department. The National Restaurant Association puts the total number of restaurant employees at 14.7 million. 

    Affiliated with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the Burgerville union drew energy from the "Fight for $15" movement, a union-led national campaign to boost wages for lower income workers.  

    "As we understand it, we're the only fast-food union that's federally recognized," Schlenz said. "We want to prove to other fast-food workers that they themselves can take charge of their own lives and fight for better treatment."    

    The Service Employees International Union, which lobbies for better wages for restaurant workers, has taken notice of the Burgerville fight.

    "This is a victory for fast-food workers across the country, and it shows that our demand for unions is stronger than ever," Joseph Franklin, a McDonald's worker in Hartford, Conn., said in a statement provided by the SEIU. "To raise wages and improve conditions at work, we need an organization on the job. Now McDonald's, which sets the bar for pay and conditions across the fast-food industry, needs to follow suit and respect our right to a union."  

    Ruth Milkman, a sociology professor at the University of New York, pointed to "the youth and aspirational politics" driving the Portland union, also noting that millennials have spearheaded a number of union drives in media. "There is a lot of evidence that the so-called millennial generation has more pro-union politics and is critical of the status quo, versus older workers."

    Yet while restaurant workers in other states might take inspiration from Burgerville's pioneering union drive, Kate Bronfenbrenner, a director of labor education research at Cornell University, noted that Portland's famously progressive social climate in Portland might have come into play.

    "The question is, is this the Portlandia effect?" asked Bronfenbrenner, referencing a sketch-comedy TV series that parodies life in Portland. "I've been studying organizing campaigns since 1996, and an organizer for 20 years before that, and I can tell you I've never seen an employer in the private sector do any communication like that." 

    Schlenz had a more cynical take on the company's public stance, saying "they put on this very progressive, liberal, empathetic face, but at the same time are paying workers poverty wages."

    The union also mocked some of the company's PR efforts on Facebook, while calling for a boycott of Burgerville to continue until it negotiates a "fair" contract with workers.

    Today Burgerville paid for a full page color ad in The Oregonian, trying to claim credit for the historic vote of the workers at the 92nd and Powell location to form a Union. Sorry Charlie 😑 no sale for this proud dues paying CWA member 🏽The Burgerville Workers Union has fought tooth and nail, in the face of shameful retaliation, over the course of two years, and this weeks victory is theirs! The workers have called for the continuation of the boycott until the company has negotiated a fair contract. So as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and not *ever* be scabs.#Union #solidarity #CWA

     

  8. Quote

    Any time a new medium is introduced — the printed word, the ability to record audio and video and certainly the internet — it’s not long before someone starts using it for erotic purposes. Thursday, a broadcast of a Major League Baseball game joined the list.

    The game, between the Diamondbacks and the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, was the fourth game that MLB has broadcast nationally and for free on Facebook this season. Midway through the game, in the chat that appears next to the video feed when not watching in full-screen mode, comments began appearing from not-too-subtly disguised spam accounts for adult webcam services.

    pornbot.pngpornbot2.pngpornbot5.png

    “Join me dear, I’m live,” wrote an account under the name of Jessica Cox with a profile photo of a naked woman. Another account beckoned viewers to “See how I play Didlo [sic]” while a third encouraged viewers to “Treat yo self with a hot and seductive exclusive show.” Several of the accounts posted multiple times at different points in the game, and some viewers began jokingly interacting with them. Many of the spam accounts punctuated their comments with suggestive emojis.

    “This is a concern and we are working with Facebook to ensure the proper safeguards are in place,” an MLB spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The Athletic. A Facebook spokesperson relayed similar concern when reached by email:

    “There is no place for activity such as this during these MLB broadcasts. These comments were posted by inauthentic accounts, which are not allowed on our platform. We have deleted these accounts and are working to prevent this type of abuse from occurring again.”

    Last month, Facebook announced the implementation of “new machine learning techniques” to identify inauthentic accounts on its platform which are often used for scams. A blog post announcing the change suggested many such accounts are manually operated by a scammer hoping to steal financial information from unsuspecting Facebook users.

    Facebook also has a “dedicated set of trained reviewers” tasked with taking down fraudulent accounts, but Facebook still relies to a certain degree on other users to flag those accounts when they appear. The Facebook spokesperson did not say whether Facebook would consider requiring all comments on future MLB broadcasts to be approved by a moderator prior to appearing in the comments feed.

    Although the matchups have yet to be announced going forward, MLB has said a total of 25 games will be broadcast on a weekly basis exclusively on the social media platform this season. There are 21 remaining, and the Facebook spokesperson said Thursday’s broadcast was the first to have any issue with comments from fraudulent accounts.

    That such a problem would arise is hardly surprising; fending off the virtual advances of porn bots has pretty much become the cost of being connected to the internet. But it does present a unique challenge for MLB’s efforts to offer broadcasts separate from traditional media.

    Games broadcast on cable and network TV don’t feature a running comment section, although the idea of creating a communal online viewing experience is undoubtedly part of the appeal of MLB’s partnership with Facebook. In the press release announcing the broadcast deal, MLB Deputy Commissioner of Business and Media Tony Petitti lauded the “uniquely interactive experience” fans could expect “watching our games on Facebook each week.”

    (The continued trend of people dropping their television packages in favor of streaming options like Hulu and Netflix is probably is a large factor in the league exploring streaming games on social media as well.)

    But it’s the rare comments section that doesn’t eventually require strict moderation, and MLB surely would like to ensure families and children do not have to wade through a bunch of adult webcam scams to enjoy watching a baseball game. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have generally spotty track records when it comes to preventing abuses of their services. Bringing game broadcasts to Facebook offers interesting new avenues for MLB, but also all the headaches inherent to social media.

     

  9. 29 minutes ago, In10se said:

    No issue with Witten here. Just like I had no issue with Cowboys cutting Fez when they did. This is all business. 

    I don't care if Witten retired an hour before the regular season opener.  He is one of the best to ever play for this franchise, one of the best TEs ever, and a rock-solid human being.  

    That dude has earned "no issue" regardless of how he decides to go out.

    • Like 5
  10. 9 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

    for me, it remains to be the person who is absently checking their phone in a green arrow left turn lane and not being ready to fucking go when that arrow turns on. i'm ten cars deep, and i'll only make the arrow if yall paying attention. don't fucking lollygag, either, yall.

    Yesterday I was in the going-straight lane at a red light.  The left turn signal went green, and the car to my left didn't move.

    About 5 seconds passed and no one honked.  I looked over and he was staring down at his phone.  I leaned on my horn.  He eventually looked up, looked around, and proceeded to turn left.

    I kind of wanted to kill him.  

    • Like 1
  11. Stark

    Quote

    What. A. Week. The best offense in baseball forgot to get a hit. Bartolo Colon outraced the world’s fastest human (almost). And one at-bat in Anaheim nearly lasted longer than the Anglo-Zanzibar War. So join us now as the Useless Info Department recaps the highlights!

    THE 21-PITCH ROAD TO HISTORY

    Imagine what you could do in 12 minutes and 45 seconds. Cook up breakfast? Buy a new set of living-room furniture online? Watch a Carlos Gómez home run trot? All kinds of stuff!

    But by now, you know what sweet-swinging Giants first baseman Brandon Belt did in 12 minutes and 45 seconds last Sunday. He dug into the batter’s box at Angels Stadium – and 12 minutes, 45 seconds later, he was still there.

    Because Angels pitcher Jaime Barria couldn’t get him out, couldn’t walk him, couldn’t get him to move on with his life, couldn’t even call his lawyer and get a restraining order.

    Along the way, here’s what transpired:

    Belt fouled off 16 pitches. In one at-bat.
    He fouled off 15 pitches just with two strikes.
    He fouled off 11 pitches in a row – after running the count full (on the ninth pitch of the at-bat).
    Barria threw 11 fastballs, six sliders and four change-ups – and mixed in four pickoff throws to first while he was at it.

    So for all that time – 21 pitches, 16 foul balls, 12 minutes and 45 seconds – basically, nothing happened (until Belt finally flied out to right on pitch No. XXI).

    And it was awesome.

    “He fouled off good pitches,” the dulcet voice of the Giants, Duane Kuiper, told our Useless Info Department correspondents. “And he fouled off bad pitches. As it kept on going, you kept thinking, ‘Man, one of these guys has to get tired.’”

    Well, maybe they eventually got tired. But if Kuiper and his partner, Mike Krukow, got tired of watching this 21-pitch extravaganza, it never showed. They were as highly entertaining as ever – despite the repetitive nature of what they were trying to describe.

    “I will tell you this,” Kuiper said. “I’ve got ‘Swing and a foul’ down. I’ve got that call down pat: ‘The pitch – swing and a foul.’”

    Asked if these were 12 minutes and 45 seconds he would like to get back, Kuiper laughed.

    “If I saw it every day,” he quipped, “I’d quit. But once every 40 years, I’m OK with it.”

    When a guy sees 21 pitches in one at-bat, though, it isn’t just amusing. It’s historic. So allow us to put that at-bat, that inning and Belt’s day in a little perspective:

    We are not allowing anyone to pronounce that this was the longest at-bat in baseball history – because remember, nobody was counting pitches back in the day when Old Hoss Radbourn was dueling Cap Anson in the afternoon sun in 1884.

    Pitch-counting history only goes back 30 years. And in those three decades, we know of only two other at-bats that lasted 19 pitches or longer:

    20 — Bartolo Colon vs. Ricky Gutierrez, June 26, 1998.
    19 — Steve Bedrosian vs. Kevin Bass, July 23, 1988.

    If it makes Belt feel better, neither of those guys reached base, either.

      We know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “There must be some hitters in baseball who have never even seen 21 pitches in an entire game. Ever. Right?” Well, if that’s what you were in fact thinking, you would be correct!

    The Elias Sports Bureau reports that Royals infielder Adalberto (formerly Raul) Mondesi has played 71 games in the big leagues – and never saw 21 pitches in any of them.

    But let’s console Adalberto Mondesi. He should know that last Sunday, only one other hitter on Belt’s team (Andrew McCutchen) saw 21 in that game. And Brandon Belt saw 21 in one at-bat.

    Or how about the Orioles? They just went four games in a row (Saturday through Wednesday) without having any hitter on their team see 21 pitches in a game. And Brandon Belt saw 21 in one at-bat.

    But let’s look at the bigger picture, too. Belt fouled off 23 pitches just in that game, over five at-bats. Yes, 23. According to Elias, no one had even fouled off 20 in any game in over 15 years – since Joe Randa did that for the Royals all the way back on April 3, 2003.

    Meanwhile, poor Jaime Barria threw 77 pitches Sunday – and only got six outs. So in an unbelievable development, his manager, Mike Scioscia, had to pull him from a 0-0 game – in the third inning – because of an elevated pitch count. Granted, his bullpen then let two runs score that were charged to him. But in the pitch-count era, he’s the first starter ever to get gonged out of a 0-0 game with that many pitches thrown and that few outs!

     Finally, thanks to all those foul balls, here’s the most amazing development of all: Barria threw 49 pitches just in that first inning – and the Giants didn’t score! So how often does that happen? Never, of course.

    Our friends at Sports Info Solutions have been tracking pitches for 17 seasons. It’s the first 49-pitch half-inning in their entire database in which zero runs were scored. And the most pitches in any shutout inning before this one was just 41, most recently in the eighth inning of a June 12, 2014 Orioles-Blue Jays game.

    Have we mentioned in the last 30 seconds that you don’t see this sort of thing every day? All right, check that. You don’t see this sort of thing any day.

    SPECIAL ROB MANFRED RULING ON 21-PITCH AT-BATS!

    So here’s the deep, philosophical question we would pose after all that went down last Sunday in Anaheim – a 28-minute, 49-pitch first inning that resulted in no runs…and, especially, a 12-minute, 45-second, 21-pitch at-bat:

    Was that baseball at its timeless best? Or baseball at its not-enough-happens worst?

    “Well, because it’s never happened before,” Kuiper mused, “I’d say it was baseball at its best… Maybe not at its very best. But it becomes entertaining. And I think that’s what the commissioner is trying to get at.”

    Is it? Can we be sure of that? Rob Manfred is, after all, a commissioner who is a big fan of speeding up the game, right?

    “You know, actually,” Kuiper quipped, with a soft chuckle, “he might say we need a rule: ‘After 10 foul balls, you’re out. We need to speed this thing along.’”

    Hmmm. Perhaps he’s right. So just to be clear, we got in touch with the commissioner himself. Is there any chance we could see a Brandon Belt Rule by, say, next week, in the spirit of keeping these games zipping along?

    Well, we have an answer. This just in from Rob Manfred himself:

    “That at-bat,” the commish told us, “was the type of interlude that makes the game great. I don’t put an epic pitcher/batter duel in the category of dead time.”

    And how correct he is. So Brandon Belt, congratulations. You’re officially pardoned by the commissioner of baseball.

    NO-HITTER OF THE WEEK

    Should we just hand A’s left-hander Sean Manaea the Cy Young Award right now? Until last Saturday, only one starting pitcher in baseball had even won a game against the Red Sox this season (Masahiro Tanaka, in a 10-7 game). And then, miraculously, Manea no-hit the hottest team in baseball.

    So how momentous was this feat? Thanks for asking. We have that answer!

      Before they got no-hit, the Red Sox were working on an eight-game winning streak. Anyone remember the last team to have a winning streak that long which ended via a no-hitter? Of course you don’t – because it happened in 1884!

    According to Elias, the only other team in history to meet that fate was Old Hoss Radbourn’s 1884 Providence Grays, who had won 10 in a row before they got no-hit by Larry Corcoran and the Chicago White Stockings. We bet the tweets weren’t quite as pithy after Larry Corcoran’s no-no.

     The Red Sox came into Saturday hitting .293 as a team. And you might say it had been a while since a lineup like that got no-hit, too – since it last happened 40 years ago. The last club to go hitless despite a team average that hefty was Michael J. Schmidt’s 1978 Phillies, who were hitting .295 until they got no-hit by Bob Forsch on April 16, 1978.

     And how hot was that Red Sox offense before this? So hot, it had ripped off seven straight games with at least 10 hits. And no team had gotten no-hit after even five games like that in a row since Wade Boggs’ 1983 Red Sox. They’d unfurled eight consecutive games with double-digit hits before Dave Righetti no-hit them on the 4th of July.

     Before Sean Manaea came into their lives, the Red Sox had only had nine hitless innings in their previous 43 innings. To find the last time they’d had more than three hitless innings in a row, you had to go back two full weeks – to a four-inning hit-free zone against the Rays on April 7. Of course, they still managed to score 10 runs that day.

    And one last quirky note that has nothing to do with any of that. This no-hitter ended on a forceout at second base. Since a bunch of people in the Twitterverse wanted to know how rare that is, we asked Elias. It was the first no-hitter to end with any sort of forceout on the bases since Fernando Valenzuela finished off a June 29, 1990 no-no with a 1-4-3 double play (off the bat of Pedro Guerrero).

    THE BARTOLO RELAY WATCH

    This week on the Bartolo Watch, we’re going to ignore the majesty of Bartolo Colon, 44-year-old hurler. Because seriously, this week we’re way more transfixed by the magic of Bartolo Colon, 44-year-old high-speed racer.

    If you haven’t seen this undoctored footage from an actual game last Saturday in Texas, we want you to take a moment to watch it now because this really happened. On our planet. Watch it and we’ll tell you how it’s possible. We’ll wait.

    What you’ve just witnessed is our man, Bartolo (Usain) Colon, somehow outracing the ultra-swift Dee Gordon to first base, on an authentic baseball field. According to MLB Statcast wiz Mike Petriello, Sprint Speed data ranks Gordon as the sixth-fastest player in baseball this year. And Colon is, well, as elite in the realm of being extremely not fast as anyone alive.

    The Statcast folks don’t regularly track pitchers’ Sprint Speed. But they tell us that the slowest position player in baseball is Astros catcher Brian McCann. Yet they have 10 instances of McCann running faster than the highest speed at which they’ve ever tracked Bartolo.

    If we compare Colon to Dee Gordon, um, that doesn’t work out too hot, either – since, through Wednesday, Statcast had recorded 68 different instances in which Gordon was clocked running faster than Bartolo’s fastest time ever just this year.

    So if Bartolo Colon could “out-Usain” Dee Gordon to first base, how can that not be simply trick photography? Oh, OK. There’s a logical explanation.

    Gordon had to run all 90 feet to first base, obviously. Colon had to run a mere 64. That was helpful.

    When ball left bat, Colon “sprinted” toward first base. It took 3.37 seconds for him to get close enough to catch the toss from first baseman Ronald Guzman. At that point, Gordon was already 73 feet up the line – but Colon, in that sneaky way of his, only had to cover 53 feet.

    Gordon would motor those final 17 feet in .57 seconds. But Colon had to traverse a mere 11 feet. Gordon almost made up the entire six-foot difference in that blink of an eye. But even though his peak Sprint Speed was a world-class 29.7 feet per second and Colon peaked at a mere 21.3 feet per second, it wasn’t enough to keep Gordon from being the latest victim of Bartolo being Bartolo.

    Which just goes to show you that even science and Statcast are no match for the inexplicable phenomenon that is Bartolo Colon.

    THE OHTANI WATCH

    Can’t let a week go by without a few vital Shohei Ohtani facts and figures. Such as…

    In his start Tuesday against the Angels, he threw four pitches clocked at 101 miles per hour. All starting pitchers not named Shohei Ohtani have combined for zero this year.

    In fact, the last starter before that game to have any pitches clocked at 101+ by Statcast was Noah Syndergaard, who threw six on Sept. 19, 2016.

    Now let’s lower the bar to a mere 100 miles per hour. Ohtani is now up to 16 pitches this year that have been measured by Statcast at 100 mph or faster. Just so you know, 176 other pitchers have started a game this season. Those other 176 have combined for nine pitches that hit triple digits – four by Syndergaard, four by Luis Severino, one by Walker Buehler.

     But as you know, this man Ohtani doesn’t just pitch. So those triple digits don’t only apply to the rockets he’s launching with his arm. According to MLB’s director of research and development, Daren Willman, only one man in baseball has thrown a baseball 100+ mph and also hit a baseball 100+ mph this year. That man would be – bet you can guess – Shohei Ohtani.

      Finally, there’s this cool nugget, from the Orange County Register’s Jeff Fletcher: Ohtani struck out the reigning AL MVP this week. That would be José Altuve. He has also homered earlier this year off the reigning AL Cy Young. That would be Corey Kluber.

    So of course I spent an hour the other day trying to figure out how rare it is for anyone to homer off a reigning Cy Young and strike out the reigning MVP in the same season. And of course just after I found the answer, I saw it had already been tweeted by the YES Network’s James Smyth (@JamesSmyth621). But here’s the result of that research anyway:

    Last man to do that? Madison Bumgarner, who did both against Clayton Kershaw (2014 Cy and MVP) in the same game – on May 21, 2015.

    Last man to do it off two different award winners? Liván Hernández (with a homer off Tom Glavine and a bunch of whiffs of Sammy Sosa) in 1999.

    Last man to do it in the American League? You have to venture back before the DH era, to 1970, when Mel Stottlemyre homered off Mike Cuellar and struck out Harmon Killebrew.

    Shohei Ohtani. Not sure how he made it through another week without generating a Babe Ruth note. But there’s always next week.

    THREE MORE WILD NUGGETS

      Is there a more one-sided rivalry in baseball than the Twins and Yankees? They got a chance to hang out together at Yankee Stadium again this week. And once the Yankees had finished sweeping a four-game series, it meant that since 2002 (if you count the postseason), the Yankees have gone an incomprehensible 94-33 against the Twins. That’s the equivalent of playing like a 120-win team (or in the Twins’ case, the ’62 Mets) over a full season.

    Next-best record by any team against any other team in its league over that same period: The Angels are 84-45 against the Tigers.

      Max Scherzer got a hit off Clayton Kershaw last Friday. He’s just the third three-time Cy Young to get a hit off another pitcher who had won at least three Cy Youngs. The others:

    Roger Clemens went 2-fo- 2 off Maddux on April 29, 2005.
    Tom Seaver singled off Steve Carlton on Aug. 18, 1981.

    Fun group!

      And would you believe Jim Riggleman has now served as an interim manager for five different teams – the Reds, Nationals, Mariners, Cubs and Padres. He has won 148 games as an interim manager – which is two more than Rick Renteria has won in three seasons as a non-interim manager.

    FIVE STRANGE BUT TRUE FEATS OF THE WEEK

    The Pirates turned the craziest double play of the year against the Phillies last weekend – a 1-3-4-2-5-8-7 circus in which seven men got involved, none of the outs were at first and the shortstop never touched the ball. So how bizarre was that?

    Retrosheet founder Dave Smith looked at every game since 1940 and reports there have been just three other double plays in which seven different defenders got mixed up in the play:

    2011 White Sox in Kansas City (9-2-6-2-5-3-4-1)
    1969 Braves versus Cubs (3-6-2-5-1-4-7)
    1969 White Sox in Minnesota (1-5-6-5-4-2-8-7)

     The Nationals scored 15 runs against the Giants on Wednesday. But what made that especially impressive is that the line score went: 300 322 230. In other words, no big numbers. Just 2’s and 3’s.

    Our favorite numerologist, Eric Orns (@eorns), delved into that one and tells us it’s only the fourth game in the last 100 years where a team scored 15-plus runs, made up of all two-run and three-run innings. It hadn’t been done in almost 70 years, since the Cubs put up an 023-032-32x line on June 28, 1950.

      On Opening Day, the Pirates beat the Tigers, 13-10. On Wednesday, the Tigers beat the Pirates, 13-10. Not surprisingly, that caught the eye of Doug “Kernels” Kern (@dakern74) – who reports that the only other time in history when two teams traded 13-10 games was in 1889, when the New York Giants and Chicago White Stockings pulled that off.

    — The Twins’ Ryan LaMarre doesn’t normally pitch for a living. But he made it to the mound for five pitches Monday in New York – and promptly served up a home run to Tyler Austin.

    The only other visiting position player in the last 50 years to give up a home run in any version of Yankee Stadium: Josh Wilson to Chris Young (the outfielder) on June 20, 2015.

    — Finally, how about this box-score epic of the week? The good news for Marlins pitcher Trevor Richards on Wednesday was that he struck out 10 and only gave up one hit. The bad news was: He threw 100 pitches in 4 2/3 innings, so he didn’t even stick around long enough to qualify for a “win.”

    H/T to Doug Kern, who tells us it’s only the second time in the live-ball era that any starter piled up double-digit strikeouts, allowed no more than one hit and didn’t get through the fifth inning. The other: King Félix Hernández, on Sept. 22, 2013. (The King only got 12 outs!)

     

  12. On 4/25/2018 at 10:50 AM, CHEF DIESEL said:

    The Allsups in Clayton is nasty. A gigantic toilet of a gas station but has easy access to the highway and cheap gas. Just nasty on the inside.

    And...they don't sell Diet Dr Pepper. Black mark and a pox on their house for that.

    I have I no idea why you would even know this because you should be stopping at the Allsup's in Texline only 20 miles away. 

  13. Stark from theathletic:

    Quote

    Anthony Rizzo had it right. More right than he even realized.

    Is it time to shorten the baseball season? It’s absolutely time.

    Would it be better for everyone – players, owners, fans, popcorn vendors, schedule makers, sunscreen sales reps – if baseball seasons lasted 154 games instead of 162? Heck yeah, it would.

    Would the world be a better place if Opening Day didn’t arrive in March, if the World Series ended before November and if just about every Monday in the season was a day off? Can you say, “Kumbaya?”

    So logic will prevail, right? This will definitely be happening, right? It’s way too logical not to, right?

    Not so fast.

    At the moment, in case you hadn’t caught wind of this, MLB and the players’ union would have a tough time agreeing on which Starbucks to meet at for coffee, let alone a dramatic schedule change. We regret to announce it’s going to take more than logic, and more than Anthony Rizzo, to shrink the schedule any time soon.

    But when the time arrives to negotiate the next labor deal in 2021, this will be a serious topic. Because it should be.

    “It’s pretty simple,” says one longtime baseball official. “We play too many games. Mark that as ‘settled.’”

    But by “settled,” he doesn’t mean “done,” obviously. He just means there is far more agreement on this general concept than you’d think. And because there is, there has been way more conversation about this idea, going back almost a decade, than you might think.

    So where has that conversation gone – and where is it likely to go from here? Let’s try to answer those questions.

    HOW MANY GAMES?

    In a simpler world, with no TV deals and no bills to pay, it would be easy to argue baseball would be better off playing 120 games or 140 games. But we don’t live in that world. This sport is not lopping 22 to 42 games (or anything close) off its calendar any time soon.

    Instead, the focus has been on two numbers which the commissioner, Rob Manfred, mentioned last week in an interview with the Associated Press – 154 games and 158. You can bet that both of those numbers will be in play when baseball gets around to revisiting this idea.

    The 158-game concept actually made it (briefly) to the bargaining table in the negotiations leading up to the 2011 labor agreement, sources say. But it quickly got pushed right off that table by the bigger scheduling question of that day – the shift to two 15-team leagues and all the ramifications that came with it.

    Five years later, however, MLB actually did extensive background research on the pros and cons of a 154-game schedule, several sources tell The Athletic. Presumably, the owners did all that work because they expected players to push for that change.

    Well, surprise: It never came up. The union got focused on other issues and never proposed it. But even if it had, a group of large-market teams raised such vociferous objections that there might never have been a deal to be made.

    Nevertheless, here’s something you should know: If you polled the 30 teams, a big majority would be all in – even now. The challenge is getting that vocal minority to buy in.

    “Basically, eight teams wouldn’t do it,” says one source who was in on those 2016 discussions. “They said, ‘We can’t make up all those lost gates or all the TV revenue. So you need to make us whole.’”

    No one would identify all eight of those teams. But an educated guess would be this group: Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox, Cubs, Giants, Cardinals, Angels and Mets. Big attendance. Big regional TV deals. Major money on the line.

    Twenty-two teams had minimal or even no objections. If you’ve noticed all the empty seats at many ballparks around America this April, it wouldn’t be that difficult to understand why.

    “On some of those Monday games,” says one executive, “for some of these teams, it costs as much to open the gates as they make to play the game.”

    So you wouldn’t have to twist many arms to get those teams to give up those games. It’s all about getting the holdouts on board. We’ll get to them shortly. But first …

    WHERE DO THE PLAYERS STAND?

    Shoveled any snow lately? Brian Dozier has.

    “One day [a mere week and a half ago], we got close to 20 inches in Minnesota,” the Twins second baseman reports. “We literally couldn’t open the doors to my house. It was halfway up the door. So we had to get to the garage and open the garage. And it was literally the first time I ever shoveled snow, being a Southern guy. My wife filmed me doing that.”

    But if he was shoveling snow, one thing he obviously wasn’t doing was playing baseball. That’s because it feels like the Twins almost never play baseball. Due mostly to meteorological nightmares beyond their control, they’ve only played 18 games – and six home games – in four weeks. You think they’re opposed to figuring out some different way to draw up this schedule?

    “I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining,” says first baseman/DH Logan Morrison. “But there has to be a better, smarter way to go about this, because playing baseball in 20 degrees is not smart, healthy or fun. That’s what it boils down to. No fan wants to come watch us play in 25-degree weather.”

    If you asked players if they could be magically transported to a planet where the sun would shine, the wind-chill factor was never a topic and there were regular off days that would allow them to rest up, recover and recognize those fellow family members who live in their household, who among them wouldn’t sign up for that?

    “Sure, it’s attractive,” says Twins reliever Zack Duke. “But I feel like (if players proposed that) the first thing that would happen is them saying, ‘You’re playing less games, so we’re not going to pay you as much.’ And obviously, that would be an issue.”

    Yes, in pretty much any job in America, you can guess the reaction if the boss were to announce: “Guess what, everybody? We’d like to pay you less money.” Baseball is no different. But there are ways to accomplish this without docking money from every paycheck.

    As Rizzo himself said when he broached this subject on ESPN 1000 radio in Chicago, existing guaranteed contracts could be “grandfathered” while future contracts would factor in shorter seasons. Or, according to executives we’ve surveyed, there are other ways the players could, in Manfred’s words, be “participants in the process” – with adjustments to, say, future minimum salaries, arbitration or other, indirect benefits.

    In fact, people involved in past labor talks believe it’s highly unlikely MLB would start the conversation by saying: “Give us back that money!” That dialogue would be more like: “Do we agree this would be good for the game? Then let’s figure out ways to share the burden.”

    And do players agree this could be good for the game? Listen again to Anthony Rizzo.

    “I think we play too much baseball,” he said. “Yes, guys are going to take pay cuts. But are we playing this game for the money or do we love this game? I know it’s both, but in the long run, it will make everything better.”

    Well, not everything. It can’t fix the weather in years where it’s this historically horrendous. But playing fewer games has so many potential benefits, it’s almost incredible that this sport has ignored exploring them for so long. How about these, for instance:

    —A better, more flexible schedule with less insane travel, more off days and less interleague play.
    — Less reason to start the season in March.
    —More hope of finishing the postseason before Halloween.
    — A different postseason format.
    — Pitcher health.
    —  Fewer injuries overall – in an industry that pays players half a billion dollars a year to hang out on the disabled list.

    “We sometimes forget the players actually are our game,” says former Rockies GM – and current MLB Network analyst – Dan O’Dowd. “And anything we can do to help them be better players, we should look at doing.”

    So what exactly should they look at doing? He has some thoughts….

    HOW COULD THIS WORK?

    How could baseball utilize a less-is-more schedule to accomplish those aims? O’Dowd has been a proponent of the 154-game plan for years. Take a look at his proposal and see what you think:

    — A 154-game schedule.

    — Every Monday off, starting with the third week of April.  His thinking here is that players need a few weeks of consistent baseball to get into the rhythm of the game. Then, once the no-Mondays plan kicks in, he believes players would benefit most from a “predictable” day off.

    Day games on Sundays, night games on Tuesdays. The idea would be to provide players as long a gap between games as possible, to give them “a legitimate break from the grind of the season.”

    More early-season games in warm weather and domes. O’Dowd is well aware that teams would complain about being loaded up with April home games. There would be financial compensation from MLB to make it worth their while.

    Early-season international round robins. Here’s another potential idea for avoiding those April snowouts. He envisions a four-team or six-team round robin in locations with good weather or domes, with a “guaranteed money return” to make up for lost home dates.

    — Adding traditional doubleheaders once the weather warms up. O’Dowd also is a longtime fan of an idea he calls “Doubleheader Day in America.” Every team in baseball would play a doubleheader that day. MLB could sell the concept to a national sponsor. (Double Mint Gum, anyone?) And it would create even more off days and more flexibility to construct a better, more manageable schedule.

    A longer all-star break. This wouldn’t necessarily be every year. But he envisions scheduling the WBC as a weeklong, one-and-done tournament over the all-star break every three or four years, at a time of year when there would be no other sport competition on TV. I’d watch!

    Use Mondays to sell the game in other ways. With no games on Monday, O’Dowd would take those Mondays and use them to highlight baseball in other forms: Turn the draft into a big national Monday night event….Find ways to showcase minor-league baseball and college baseball….Maybe a showcase for marquee high school prospects….Or cook up other types of creative, non-game programming that might appeal to a different demographic. Then baseball would sell that package nationally and use the proceeds to help teams make up for lost TV dates.

    Just to be clear, he would exempt ESPN Sunday night games, other national TV games and holidays from this format. So there would be flexibility where it’s needed. But don’t consider the complications. Consider the benefits.

    “We currently have 24 days off, including the four games over the all-star break, so this would provide an additional eight days – or 32 total,” O’Dowd says. “I have no doubt the quality of play would increase and the repetitive injury risk of our sport would decrease.”

    For what it’s worth, baseball has seen studies that support that theory, which suggests a significant cut in the injury rate is a real possibility. But beyond what this could accomplish in reducing injuries, “getting away from the game mentally is just as important as getting away from it physically,” O’Dowd says. “I forgot to mention these guys are husbands, fathers, brothers and sons. This adds to the small windows of opportunity to have a balanced life.”

    He recognizes that his plan isn’t perfect. And ideas like this don’t solve every problem. In fact, the ripple effects might actually create a new problem or two. But is there any reason baseball isn’t thinking long and hard about these sorts of concepts? We can only think of one….

    MAKING UP THE DOLLARS

    What’s the only obstacle to making this happen? Take a wild guess.

    It isn’t the integrity of the record book. It’s what it always comes down to.

    The dollar signs.

    It’s about those eight teams – the ones that don’t want to give up a single home date, let alone four a year – and how this sport can find a way to compensate them for the money that wouldn’t flow into their accounts if games start disappearing off the schedule.

    So how much money are we talking about?

    Let’s look at the Yankees, since they led the AL in attendance last year.

    Start with this – money paid out by the average family of four in a trip to Yankee Stadium: About $301. That figure comes from Team Marketing Report’s Fan Cost Index. It includes tickets, parking, refreshments and a trip to the souvenir stand. Now let’s apply the Shorter Schedule Math.

    If you cut the schedule to 154 games, that’s four lost home dates. Now multiply that by the Yankees’ average attendance last year (39,385 per game). It comes to over $12 million – just in lost stadium revenue.

    Would they miss that $12 million? Who wouldn’t? But that’s assuming they would actually lose it – because you know how easy it would be for them to make up that money? Here’s how easy:

    They’re losing 5 percent of their home dates, right? Now let’s apply more Shorter Schedule Math.

    TICKET MATH: The average price of a ticket to a Yankees game, according to the Fan Cost Index? That would be $47.62. So how much would they have to raise the average ticket price to make up every penny of that 5 percent lost ticket revenue? How about a whopping $2.38.

    HOT DOG MATH: Let’s say a Yankee Stadium hot dog costs $5. So how could they make up every dime in lost hot-dog revenue? By hiking the price of a hot dog by a staggering 25 cents.

    We could keep going here, but you get the idea.

    The bigger challenge, clearly, is TV money. Most teams guarantee their local cable sports network between 140-145 games a year, with the assumption that teams like the Yankees would lose the rest to national TV. But cutting eight games off the schedule could make it impossible for them to air enough local TV games to live up to their contract. And that’s a problem with no easy solution.

    But how hard has baseball even tried to find that solution? It hasn’t.

    “It’s never been a negotiation,” says one of the officials quoted earlier. “It’s never gotten that far.”

    So how about, one of these years, it does get that far? Is there an answer? Of course there’s an answer. Once upon a time, we heard that teams like the Yankees and Dodgers would never agree to revenue sharing, either. How’d that work out?

    Lots of issues – in life and baseball – seem impossible to solve until you look seriously for ways to make them possible. It’s time for this sport to start searching for ways to make a better, saner, shorter schedule possible.

    It’s too late to save Brian Dozier from shoveling snow on game day. But it’s not too late to fix the schedule. Just ask Anthony Rizzo.

     

    • Like 2
  14. This is by far the most hysterical part of it:

     

    Quote

    Pegula offered that he thought the league was battling a perception and “media problem.” He said it would be great for the league to find a compelling spokesman — preferably a player — to promote all of the good things they were doing together. He suggested that the league could learn from the gun lobby in this regard.

    “For years we’ve watched the National Rifle Association use Charlton Heston as a figurehead,” Pegula said. “We need a spokesman.”

    That's like reading an Onion article.

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