jad
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Everything posted by jad
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Agreed. I knew we were talking at cross-purposes somehow. It's extremely difficult to earn one's way there. Because (alas!) the surest way to the 1% (or the 10%, or even the 50%) is to be born into it.
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They're not? (DTS was just handed a check for over 2 billion dollars). You think there are over 3 million Americans with more than that? (Yikes!) (Actually, the figure for 1% is $10million net worth. Even dumb-ass athletes have that much!)
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You must travel in a different circle from mine. But let's just talk sports franchise owners: the only names I can think of are: Dan Snyder, Jerry Jones, (once) Donald Sterling, Jeanie Buss, the guy who owns the Sacramento Kings, Derek Jeter (?), (the dude who used to own the Colts)--hardly geniuses ... Maybe the ones I can't think of are infinitely smarter than the few I can.
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I think we have plenty of evidence around us that "insanely intelligent" is not something that applies to 1%ers, or even that small sub-set of them who happen to own sports franchises.
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(OK. I admit defeat. I think I would have to spend the entire week reviewing older posts to understand the nuances of this argument. I'm not even certain of the topic. But my incisive opinion: Mookie is a very good baseball player; he deserves to make a lot of money; I don't know how much.)
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Agree. I really don't care what they make (I care more about what owners make, since they're the ones that extort money from the public in the form of tax breaks, etc.). But our attitudes toward money are curious: few of us (wage earners--I'll omit figures) think 'I have way way way more money than I need to live comfortably'. Instead, we think 'I need vacations, tuition for my kids, money for my business ventures, a new house, ...' i.e., our imagined 'needs' expand to align with our 'means', and we never have quite enough. I imagine the same psychology applies to those who make 100x more than we do.
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Well yes. But the issue is that players don't 'need' money (anymore than someone making 80K 'needs' every nickel of that). They view it as a statement of their value and worth. It takes a lot of introspection to disassociate those two things, and I doubt a 25-year-old multi-millionaire is in a position to do that. Additionally, that pay-cut (as the player and his agent well know) will not go to fans; it won't go to helping the hungry; and it won't go to dropping ticket prices. It will go into the owners' pockets or to other players. And that's an interesting question on the income of ticket-buyers, and probably a difficult one to answer, since many season tickets go to corporations, and many (a majority?) of those that go to individuals end up resold. In any case, we know they aren't over-priced, since there are butts in the seats. It won't matter if Mookie (and all other players for that matter) gets 40million/year or plays for nothing; the ticket prices will remain the same.
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That's an excellent response. Now, if you would please answer the simple question I asked: your boss notes that you can live comfortably on 20% less than you make now and thus gives you a salary cut. How do you react? (Your boss, of course, will keep that 20% to do ... whatever.)
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And when your boss tells you you can live comfortably on 20K less per year than you get now, and therefore you can expect that as a pay cut, exactly how do you react?
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The math is pretty simple, no? The average career for an MLB player is 5.6 years. Let's just say you have a 25 man roster (even though it's effectively higher than that). Looks to me that you need 4-5 players from the farm even to keep a minimum roster. So just to have an average farm, you need all your first five picks eventually to become part of your roster.
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While I agree totally on E-rod, I'm not sure those 'bright spots' are that few. E.g., Devers, Bogaerts, Vasquez, Workman, JDM, Holt, are all having good years. Mookie, ok, but not MVP-like. Benny and JBJ--disappointing, but not shockingly bad. That certainly should have gotten the job done (if, say, the nos. 1-3 starters had managed to win another dozen or so games, that is, even if they had had mediocre to disappointing years, which they did not).
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Another factor I heard cited to explain this is eye focus, which essentially switches from "far" to "near" when the ball gets near the plate. (Same, I believe, in tennis). This gives the illusion of sudden movement as the eyes, or brain, adjusts to where the ball is (what used to be called the "hop" in a fastball--a term I don't hear used anymore). Again, a pure illusion. As for groundballs, I think the only way for one to pick up speed would be if it were hit with terrific topspin--again, this certainly 'seems' to happen in tennis. But I'm not sure whether that speed is real or just an illusion as the ball does not bounce as expected. This, of course, could be easily tested. I think we already know the FB does not rise or 'hop'--all we're looking for there is an explanation of why it seems to do so. The first time I saw MLB players throwing from the outfield, I was convinced that the ball rose as it was thrown--obviously, it wasn't. It must be what the brain tells us when confronted with a throw that is much faster than what we're used to.
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Yup. We agree on all points. (This being a sports board, however, that should not prevent us from arguing passionately about it!)
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This is word-play. Gravity is of course constant, but its 'effects' vary. (Helicopters and frisbees, for example). Also, trying to distinguish 'movement' from 'lack of movement' makes little sense. Again, helicopters and frisbees. In a vacuum, a thrown baseball would move in a parabola. But that is affected by all sorts of things in the real world: atmospheric resistance, itself affected by spin, the gyroscopic effect of spin etc. etc. These change the trajectory of the ball away from the parabola of an ideal vacuum. It hardly matters whether you call the discrepancy in this path 'movement' or 'lack of movement.'
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Yeah, I know. I went to a Double-A game a couple of weeks ago, because really, after a day of sailing, tennis, golf, going to the museums, checking out the art museum, a couple of restaurants, an outdoor concert, lobster rolls, hanging out on the beach, I just couldn't find a damn thing to do.
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C'mon, Rafy. listen to people who really know the game, and (of course) have played at levels you once day hope to attain.
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What? Of COURSE they do! Some of the best minds in sports are on this boards and the RS know it! Do you think it's a coincidence that after 86 years, the RS began to win championships just when sports boards began to be popular? Or that DD was fired just when many here began to demand his head?
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It won't matter. Once you show that tangible facts do not fit their narrative, they will begin appealing (and already have) to 'intangibles', e.g., the 'attitude' of the team, etc., which no one can measure or perceive, players' 'readiness to play', also imperceptible.
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9/14 SOX @ Phillies 7:05 PM EST
jad replied to SPLENDIDSPLINTER's topic in Mike Grace Memorial Game Thread Forum
Blessedly, your lack of self-awareness will prove to be a life-saver. -
Well yes. But having thought about golf, now to baseball. Since pitching and defense are so important, do the RS need to get rid of, say, JDM, and maybe toss in Betts and Boggaerts and Devers (even though all are good to excellent defenders) to try to find another Bradley Jr., and David Price? The RS problem this year was not lack of defense. It was, as everyone knows, starting pitching. You already have, what, close to 100million invested in that? Are you proposing to increase that figure? eat much of that money, likely for years (via trade)? or do what you can (including hope) that your SP perform as they are paid to perform? Because those seem to me the real-world choices.
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Obviously I let him walk and see if I can find a used-up middle reliever at 20 mil/yr. (OK. I'll stay with guiding principle #1: I keep my best players.)
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Trying to improve your team? Well obviously the first thing you should do is get rid of your best players (at least, in the bizarro world of sports boards).
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You're right. It is sort of like the Washington football team celebrating the signing of Ernie Davis (and Bobby Mitchell). On the other hand, it serves as a good reminder to some of us that this happened in our lifetimes. Hard to believe that an all-white RS team seemed perfectly ordinary to me as a kid, as did the fact that there were no black players at schools like Alabama.
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Or Bobby Valentine! Ass-kicking is just what this team needs.
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Sale: 6 wins; Price-- 7; Eovaldi --1 . Former-Cy-Young-winner: 12. How is this the bullpen's fault?
