I mean, just… wow. What’s the bankruptcy rate of the average schmoe over a lifetime? Three percent?
One wonders where the players’ unions are. Why are they not hiring platoons of financial advisors to assist their membership?
The thing about Dykstra, though, was that he was giving himself the bad financial advice. And the real kicker is that for a while, he was actually a pretty well-respected investor (from what I’m told - my brother is pretty knee-deep in the financial scene in Philly).
Interesting article over at baseball-reference.com’s blog today. They’re trying to make second half predictions this week, and are concocting pretty out-there stats. But today’s is actually a very useful bit of information - bullpen use.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/blog/archives/1917
I never would have thought of it, and I certainly never would have been had the time to calculate it. But it’s really a nice, elegant display of how much of the burden has been placed on each team’s bullpens. Since you can’t watch every game, it’s a good piece of info.
The idea of the Tigers landing Halladay is nice. Edwin Jackson as a number 3 pitcher is a very nice thought, but I think that offense has been the Tigers’ problem this year. Not pitching (especially from the rotation).
Accepted.
You did? Who from? Anyone who had watched him improve continuously over his previous seasons?
But Papi’s back. It suddenly happened right when I said it did, despite some serious, shall we say, “scoffing” from certain denizens of these threads. That start just doesn’t matter anymore.
Their hangover from last year’s breakthrough does appear over, and they do have the horses and the manager to repeat. By now, anyone who’s still having a great year has a pretty good chance to continue having one - if there’s any coming back to earth, it’s more likely to happen over the winter, just like it did this year.
The Jays are still trying, bless their hearts, but the O’s aren’t.
[makes saving throw vs. mudfight]
His rate of improvement had actually been fairly modest. His 2006 and 2007 seasons were quite similar, and his career high slugging percentage was in the mid .400’s. Then he slugged .570 in 2008 at the age of 29, which is a bit past most players’ primes. It read more like a spike in production than a new established level of greatness, and most national commentators agreed. Sure am happy to be wrong, though!
Nice dinger in last night’s game! I sure hope he’s back for real, but you have to wonder what was wrong with him for 2 months.
This I don’t agree with. I’ll bet Jason Bartlett finishes the year with an OPS at least 100 points lower than it is now. I mean, the guy is slugging about 160 points above his previous career high! Zobrist has less of a track record to go by, but if he finishes the season with an OPS over a thousand, I’ll eat my hat.
So as I watched it happen yesterday I have an “Intentional Walk” question.
Why do they actually throw the 4 balls on an intentional walk? Why doesn’t the pitcher just tell the ump “Walk”, and the ump say “take your base”? It’s really kind of annoying to have to sit through four pointless throws when we all know what’s happening anyway.
Because sometimes there’s a passed ball, or Miguel Cabrera swings at it.
Or the pitcher could balk. Or the catcher could balk. Or they could throw one right down the middle (like they did to Johnny Bench in the 1973 World Series.)
The Yankees finished off a sweep of the Twins today. It’s a treat to watch Joe Mauer hit, but other than him and Morneau, that team is…thin.
Edit: I forgot to add that this was the last regular season game (and let’s face it… last* game*) the Yankees will play at the Big Baggie. Good riddance. Nothing against the Twins, but that stadium is not the best.
I think he sold his car washes for 47 mill. He was really rich and spent it like a king. He had a 400K auto and an expensive mansion. His stock business was a big money maker ,until the crash.
Don’t forget player’s wives, either. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of them get as used to the high-roller lifestyle as the players themselves do, and keep right on spending money like water even after their husband’s careers are over. I’m reading Darryl Strawberry’s autobiography at the moment, and according to him his second wife just kept spending his money, even when the combination of his cancer and addiction problems made it clear his career was over and the money wasn’t going to just keep coming.
The Astros/Nationals games had a stat that i’ve never seen before: three blown saves in a single game (two by Houston, one by Washington).
I think the Save is a pretty silly stat anyway, but i wonder what the record is for blown saves in a single game. Here’s one game with four, three of them by the Reds and one by the Padres. Surely that must be the record?
Interesting, after Minnesota moves into their new stadium and the Marlins get their new ball park, Tampa Bay will be the only team in baseball playing in a truly horrible stadium. All of those 1970s mulitpurpse concrete bowls and bad domed stadiums will be gone.
Tampa Bay will be left with the worst stadium in the majors. After them? Oakland? Toronto? New Comiskey?
I’ve watched a lot of old baseball on dvd during the off season. I can’t believe how horrible and ugly some of those stadiums were for baseball.
Well, Oakland is supposed to be replaced soon as well. I know the deal has had its problems, but these things usually get worked out eventually.
It’s crazy hearing people speak of Toronto’s stadium as “bad.” I remember when it was hailed as beautiful and state-of-the-art when it opened. I know that was 20 years and probably 20 new stadiums ago, but seriously, do people actually think it’s bad now? What a shame.
I have no idea if the Toronto stadium is bad as I’ve never been there. From seeing it on tv, it looks like it has the same problems as every multipurpose stadium I’ve been to: seat sight lines that aren’t ideal for baseball and it looks like a lot of the seats are pretty far away from the action.
Oakland is in a bad situation. Their best bet is that the Raiders and 49ers build a joint stadium and then the A’s can remodel the Coliseum like the Angels redid Anaheim Stadium. The A’s deal in the South Bay is off and with California in such a mess, I don’t see them getting a new stadium anytime soon. I’m not sure where they could relocate to. San Antonio, TX maybe?
At least that would be one good thing to come out of the California budget crisis.
I love baseball, and i even have something of a soft spot for the A’s, but if the current economic crisis causes cities and states to think harder before forking over millions of taxpayer dollars for sports arenas, then that’s a silver lining on the dark cloud.
I went to AT&T Park for the first time tonight to watch the Giants beat the Padres. The Giants’ park is a bit more expensive than average, but i find the slightly inflated prices a bit easier to bear, knowing that the stadium was built without massive amounts of public money. It’s also a beautiful place to watch a game of baseball.
The Oakland Coliseum used to be a perfectly nice little ballpark, until Al Davis ruined it with the monstrous upper deck (“Mt. Davis”) he demanded as ransom for the Raiders. It’s always completely empty, and blocks the view of the East Bay hills.
They actually have advisers come in and try to warn them. But when you are young and healthy, you think it will never happen to you. They get very rich and the fans love them when they are in their 20s. Generally bars and restaurants seem to be pretty solid investments.
Crap, Inge made the all star team. He has a bad knee and I would rather he sat at home and rested it.
Not coincidentally, the only one the sun never shines on, too. And in frickin’ Florida. Oh, well, at least we’re not going to have the Oakland A’s of Fremont in our future.
Tastes do change. They were once all new, modern, and efficient, unlike those cramped, archaic, wastefully festooned old relics from the early 20th century. And tastes can change again - the new retro parks have a disquieting degree of sameness all their own.
What strikes me most about watching footage from as recently as the early Eighties is how much all the players look like high school kids. “Modern training techniques” made more of a difference to basic physiology than many fans seem to remember.