Sorry for the lack of action over here – I’m tied up writing reports and making phone calls. I’ve even ground to a halt in Gone With the Wind.
Klawchat tomorrow will be at 1:30 pm EDT and I’ll probably have to stop at 2:30.
Today’s quiz on mental_floss is on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
Interesting piece on why more roads may not reduce traffic.
Milledge/Ramirez ’09!
Except Manny has a legitimate chance of getting elected. How amazing would that be?
Isn’t that fairly common wisdom after what Robert Moses did to New York?
Klaw,
Chatting opposite Goldstein could cause draftniks’ heads to explode.
If only I knew how to spell “lollypop”…
14/15. I am mildly disappointed in myself.
Rich,
I agree; I thought that was old news! Keith, you still need to read The Power Broker.
“They tried to get him to leave, but they told him to “take a walk,” and he was just hopelessly confused.”
Well played, sir.
Hah, that was classic Klaw snark at it’s finest.
The AJ Burnett comment from the Klawchat was from an article that Olney posted. It was a quote from an unnamed scout.
http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3963745&name=olney_buster
I think he said, “why should I take a walk? They don’t show on-base percentage on the scoreboard.”
KLaw-
Interesting comments regarding the IBB. Do you feel the same way about “pitching around” a guy? These are often not-so-subtle IBBs.
What type of numbers would a guy have to put up to justify giving him a free base over just letting him hit? Would Bonds at his 2000’s peak qualify?
BSK: Probably not. Until a guy has a sustained SLG of >1.000, its not worth handing him a free base. Bonds’ best SLG was .863 in 2001 so simply handing him 1st was still doing more to yourself than he was expected to do. There were situations where an IBB made sense, just not nearly as many as he got.
(Diverging a bit, how ridiculous is it that a guy who was intentionally walked 43 times one year couldn’t get a job the next? T-5th highest ever but not worthy of a one year deal.)
Dave, that is what I intuitively thought, but wasn’t sure if that was too obvious. I assume that the 1.000 SLUG is the break point because, once above that, it means a guy “averages” one or more bases per at bat. Therefore, giving the guy “just’ first base makes sense, but otherwise, you are giving up more than you are protecting, absent an extreme situation.
And Bonds didn’t get a job because he’s a world class jerk, duh! (end sarcasm)