Best moment from Media Day today?
From Henry Schulman, Giants beat writer:
Reporter just asked Romo what country he was from originally. Romo: “United States…it’s nice to do background work.”
That is visibly not statistically significant.
For his career he is at 32% thrown out, essentially the point at which his opponents would be about as well off never trying to steal a base at all. And as Munch points out, baserunners do not attempt many steals against Posey. Posey played about two thirds of a season at catcher. The average MLB team attempted 127 steals, so let’s call that 84 in two thirds of a season, but they attempted only 59 against Posey. As you can’t explain that by there being fewer baserunners - the Giants allowed fewer baserunners than most teams but not THAT many fewer - the logical conclusion is people don’t like to run on Posey. And for good reason; there really isn’t any point. Unless you can steal 75%+ of the time, it’s a waste of effort.
Okay, sounds good. Well, we’ll see if KC runs on him.
I just watched the Bal-KC game 4. In the first inning, for Yost to have Lorenzo Cain lay down that bunt was incredible.
ETA: I was checking out the competition. I’ve only had time to watch the NLCS.
Seriously?
If you consider the injuries they had, maybe. But most pre-season predictors had them winning 90-95 games (Vegas line was 92 fwiw). They upgraded their one significant weakness last season (SS - where Peralta was probably their best player). If Matheny benched Craig earlier instead writing his name in at #4 for what felt like half the season they might have done even better. And demoting Wong after a cold start was just silly, IMO.
My position (as someone who watches basically every Cardinals game) is that Matheny is a perfectly fine players manager, with the rather typical flaw of almost always giving more rope to “proven veterans” than young players. He’s not great tactically, but not the worst either. He’s a mediocre manager, basically, whose flaws have been a bit covered up by really solid teams that have done reasonably well in the playoffs the last few years. This iteration may win a WS in the next few years, and if so it won’t be because of Mike (hell, the Royals may win the WS this year, and you’ll never convince it’s because of Ned Yost).
What you say of Mike Matheny, it sounds similar to what could be said about Dusty Baker.
For this World Series, Bruce Bochy just might be the difference maker. At least I hope he is. He manages the game like a chess grand master. Sometimes his moves are questionable (leaving Hunter Strickland in NLDS Game 1!), but all in all Bochy is brilliant.
Everything I’ve read indicates Cain was bunting on his own there.
OK thanks for that. Still a ballsy move.
go giants!!!
Go Royals!!!
My prediction for tonight: One of these teams will lose.
(fingers crossed that we don’t have a 6-hour, 18-inning game)
I reckon I’ll be rooting for the Royals. With rare exceptions (read: Yankees and Red Sox) I root for the AL team.
Who’s rooting for the Royals this year?
Hmmm … the Royals haven’t been there since forever, and it may be just as long before they get back after this. But the Giants have the Panda …
I’m torn.
I’m rooting for seven games. That makes the gap between the end of the season and the beginning of next season as short as possible.
I’m hoping that Bumgarner throws the first of 4 consecutive perfect games tonight. This postseason has been stressful enough already.
Here we go! The first World Series I really care about since the 1990 Cincinnati Reds and the 1985 Kansas City Royals.
Did I seriously just hear all of the talking heads on the intro segment pick the Royals, including one sweep prediction?
I certainly picked the Royals, though so far in Game 1 they’ve done an excellent job heaving away the advantage I felt they had.
Is Buster Posey trying to set some kind of record for most times being thrown out at the plate in a single postseason?
Royals’ post-season win streak in plenty of danger here.
Come on, KC!