Hey... Listen!

Moved

2010-02-25T02:17:00.001-06:00

I've moved operations to the Hot Sign. Will see if I can set this page up with a js redirect given the opportunity.

Moving

2010-02-12T12:15:00.002-06:00

I've registered a domain name and hired a hosting service. I plan to write a script to migrate my haloscan comments and blogger posts into wordpress format and move over there once I ~~have~~ make some downtime.

I'm not Laughing Either

2010-02-10T20:13:00.004-06:00

When I first started watching college basketball, I found the statistics kept fairly useless. Naturally, coming from a baseball background. (As a fan, the only sports I know I'm able to perform at better than the average person my age are hockey and swimming [I'm also terrible at softball].) Ken Pomeroy and Jon Gasaway, both now writers at Basketball Prospectus introduced me to tempo-neutral statistics. Traditionally, basketball players are measured by the number of events per game: points per game, rebounds per game, etc.. Tempo-neutral statistics use as the denominator possessions instead of games: points per possession, rebounds per possession, etc.. This is a major improvement in perspective because not all teams play the same style. A fast-tempo team like Texas is currently averaging 75.4 possessions per 40 minutes on the floor, their offensive philosophy can be inferred to be that the first good shot available should be taken. A slow-tempo team like (prototypically) Air Force averages 60.1 possessions per 40 minutes. They attempt to eat clock by moving the ball around until the shot clock starts to run out while denying their opponents high percentage shot opportunities on defense.

A player on Air Force could theoretically be the best shooter in the country and still not make point-per-game leaderboards, which means that the PPG statistics aren't capturing the information that you would value when evaluating top shooters. Tempo-free shooting would reveal his prowess.

The point is that in data analysis, it's important to neutralize contextual factors, when possible. This article is an egregious example offailure to perform even the most obvious context neutralization, i.e. dividing something you're counting by some other number that gives you a rate that captures the facts that you want to understand.

The article reports on a quick and dirty corpus analysis of the token '(laughter)' in White House presser transcripts to estimate how receptive the press corps is to the white house press secretary. The formula apparently chosen is laugh_count / days . I don't listen to politicians and their flacks any more frequently than they read the laws they pass, so I don't know if it is true that the press secretary speaks with the press for the same amount of time every day, but I find it unlikely in the extreme, especially when the article quotes a Washington Times correspondent with, "Robert's little digs and evasions have lost their power to amuse — particularly since we haven't had a presser since July."

If true (and it can't be) that'd be like measuring a basketball player not by points per possession, or points per game, but by points per week. Some weeks his or her team doesn't play, but that doesn't mean he's missing shots.

The moral of the story is that if you're going to do a corpus analysis, even if it's for a silly piece like that, you have to count the right things, plug them into the right formula, and report the result accurately. Presenting your source code is always a great idea.

Roster Prognostication, Part I

2010-02-09T23:03:00.005-06:00

As is my wont this time of year, time to make some crazy guesses about how the Cardinals opening day roster will look. Here's my first stab at it:

Rotation

The top four starters are locked in, barring catastrophe or unexpected atrophy. The fifth starter looks to be a race between K-Mac, Mitch Boggs, Rich Hill, and Jaime Garcia. I expect Garcia will get looks but won't start any games in Spring Training and that the organization would prefer to see him pitch in AAA for a while before calling him up unless he's undeniably the best of the candidates to help the Cardinals win. I like Mitch more than most Cardinals fans, believing him to have a good fastball (especially out of the pen) and a good slider (neither of which are uncontroversial beliefs), but also to have a good, if underutilized curveball. I like those three weapons enough that I think he can be effective enough in the 'pen to handle both lefts and rights and am confident he'll pitch a few meaningful ninth innings this season in the Lou. I'm a K-Mac fan when he's pitching in middle relief or as fireman. Of those four, I'd be most interested in seeing Hill start.

Rich Hill strikes me as a classic Duncan reclamation project, with plus pitches (especially the curve) and a history of high strikeouts and almost-as-high walk rates. As I've argued many times, the Duncan philosophy as I understand it is transparently DIPS-friendly: throw strikes low in the zone with movement away or down from the batters hands (sinkers and cutters) to get ground balls and avoid the home run; and throw them in the zone to avoid walks. Sacrificing the strikeouts that will happen when you pitch somewhat more predictably is worth it if you can lower your walk and home run rates by even smaller rate differentials. Walks and especially home runs are weighted sufficiently more greatly than strikeouts that the strategy works if you can get the pitcher to take something off his fastball in exchange for movement and control to hit the spots.

I guess the rotation will then be:

Carp — Wagonmaker — Penny — Lohse — Hill

Regular starters

Nothing fancy here:
C: Yadi
1B: el Hombre
2B: Skip
3B: David Freese
SS: B-Ryan
LF: Legolegs
CF: Razzle
RF: Lud

Bench

Here's where things get interesting. Our starting lineup has two left-handed bats in it, so we need some lefty options on the bench. Preferably two: one a contact hitter who'll take a walk and one a power bat. We positionally need, at minimum: a catcher, two middle infield utility men, a backup CF, and a corner IF-OF who could legitimately fill in at 3rd for stretches if Freese gets in the doghouse.

Backup catcher is 'Stache Larue. One of the middle infielders is Julio Lugo, who may serve as Skip's platoon partner if he struggles against lefties, which makes Skip a possibility for the contact-lefty bench bat in a set of situations.

The real competitions, then, are for the corner IF-OF, the CF, and the other utility infielder. One of these men should bat southpaw with authority.

The best two candidates I see for backup middle infielder are Tyler Greene, a RH SS who hit pretty well in AAA last season and Ruben Gotay, a switch-hitter who led the PCL in OBP last year and who hits far better from the left side. Gotay isn't quite up to the task of backing up short... But neither was Miles. Gotay is on a minor-league contract with an NRI and Greene has options, so there's no contract situation to put one over the other. Purely a skill-set call: is Greene's ability to man short competently more valuable than Gotay's versatility?

To backup CF, you'd want a good defender, preferably a right handed batter in case Colby Rasmus struggles against left-handed pitching (which I'm fairly unconcerned about). The candidates are Jon Jay, Shane Robinson, and Joey Bombs. Jon Jay's the best defender by a long shot but is the only of the three to bat lefty. Shane's scrappy and played well in ST last year in a hilarious call-up from minor league camp (he's a slight fellow and was wearing a uniform that was several sizes too big in every direction in his first game. But also hit a home run and made a dazzling defensive play in left.) Joey Bombs is a behemoth who didn't look lost to me in the very small sample I've seen him play center. Joe Mather also is recovering from wrist surgery, so his batting may not be quite up to the level expected of a being his stature. My guess would take the competition down to Jay and Mather, and here it comes down to the question of whether Jay's better defense is more valuable than Mather's right-handedness to complement Colby.

For the corner utility man (the Spiezio role), the obvious in-house candidate is Allen Craig, who hasn't OPS'd under .850 since short-season, but whose defensive ability at third-base is in apparent ill-repute. I never had a chance to see him field at third so have no reason to dispute that with any credibility. Joe Mather's another possibility, perhaps more likely here than as a backup CF, as he arrived at camp last year ready to compete for third base with Glaus out before injuring himself. Another candidate who I think is still a slim possibility and would be a good fit is Eric Hinske, who signed a million dollar contract with the Braves. Hinke fits the role and bats lefty. I don't see how he fits in with the Braves this year and could see a swap possibly happening. I'll ignore the possibility henceforth and consider the competition between Mather and Craig.

So here are some possible scenarios, leaving out Lugo and Larue who won't be contested for contract reasons, barring meltdown:

Mather beats out Craig, Gotay for versatility, Greene for acceptable backup SS
Mather (CF, SPEEZE) — Gotay (IF) — Greene (SS)

Mather beats out Craig, Jay as backup CF
Mather (SPEEZE) — Greene (IF) — Jay (OF)

Craig beats out Mather
Craig (SPEEZE) — Greene (IF) — Jay (OF)

TLR likes switch-hitters
Craig (SPEEZE) — Gotay (IF) — Jay (OF)

I ordered them with respect to how likely I believe each to be: I think Mather's wrist will need a few more months of healing time, Gotay's a pretty fine replacement-level pickup who can backup third just fine to push Craig to third-string there, and Rasmus looks comfortable against LHP.

Bullpen

Franklin's installed as closer and the left-handers are locked in. The rest is somewhat wide open. I'm assuming a 7-man bullpen, which is hopefully what we'll end up with, which leaves four spots for a number of contenders. As I said before, I'm a fan of Mitch Boggs and think K-Mac will be in the bullpen. That leaves room for a middle-relief right-hander and a long-man (if it's not McClellan, especially if he stays stretched out to start in a late competition for 5th starter). I'd guess Motte and Hawksworth. Eduardo Sanchez had a great season, but walked AA batters at double the rate K-Mac did before making the leap to the MLB. I expect Garcia to start at AAA to start the year. Charlie Zink would be neat, but won't put money on the knuckleballer over the fireballer. I expect Ben Jukich to be returned once the starters get stretched out. I've always liked the Darren Oliver style lefty long-man and think if Jukich makes the roster at all, it'd be in that fashion. I incidentally think that's a pretty good way to use a Rule 5 drafted starter, who tends to see plenty of low-leverage innings.

Franklin — Reyes — Miller — Boggs — Kyle — Motte — Hawk

It'll be pretty exciting to see whether Craig and Jay can perform at the top level as well as many of use have hoped for a long while.

Nothing Nice to Say

2010-01-20T17:02:00.007-06:00

Let's make fun of Bill McClellan in the style of FJM in which we mock every word of his most recent column (minus the acerbic wit that made FJM brilliant). Shall we?

Let's.

For as long as I have lived here, Cardinals fans have called themselves the best fans in baseball. At one time that claim had to do with a certain level of sophistication.

The "best fans in baseball" is a lame claim, true. I'm skeptical about whether fans are any more or less sophisticated now than they were in whatever era Bill McClellan deems to be a more nuanced and subtle age. It's likely that the subset of fans who get all their information from the radio have suffered in sophistication following Jack Buck's retirement. I love Mike Shannon as much as the next fan, but he definitely comes up short of Buck's high standard when it came to calling a game while unobtrusively teaching it.

Cardinals fans would applaud a batter who gave himself up and moved a runner to third by hitting to the right side with no outs. They appreciated a hitter who'd take a couple of pitches to give a potential base stealer a chance to run. Cardinals fans knew their baseball and appreciated effort.

How surprising that Bill McClellan, who came to St. Louis in 1980, considers his formative years in the '80s to be the Golden Age of baseball fan sophistication. Trust me, Bill: fans still appreciate stolen bases and runners advancing but are sophisticated enough now to understand how risky base stealing is and how much more valuable the out "given up" is to the advancement of that base runner in almost all situations. We might appreciate that a well placed, poorly hit ball with a runner on first and no outs is less bad than a poorly placed, poorly hit ball, but you'll have to forgive us for not exploding in joyous revelry at the marginal benefit. And as for taking a couple pitches: I may never have applauded Rick Ankiel more gratefully than after he walked to end a 17-pitch plate appearance, although perhaps McClellan shook his head at such lawyer-ball when Ank failed to ground out to the right side in that men-on, no out situation.

In fact, they demanded effort. In August 1981, when Garry Templeton didn't run out a ground ball, the fans booed, and he responded with an obscene gesture. Next thing you know, he was traded to San Diego for Ozzie Smith.

This conflates a lot of history. Templeton already had a prickly relationship with the fans. At the time (Aug. 26, 1981), he was getting on base at a .291 clip as a lead-off hitter with a .261 batting average and a below-average defender at shortstop. He hadn't walked in almost three months (with plenty of time lost to injury). His backup was a home-grown switch-hitter who'd been filling in during Templeton's lengthy stints on the DL and was sporting a .333 average on 8/26/1981.

I'm not so sure they'd boo Templeton now.

Nonsense. Of course he would get booed, just like Tino Martinez was when he was stinking it up at 1st while Pujols was stuck in left with a bum throwing arm. I'm sure Miguel Cairo was heckled back in 2003 when he'd give Bo Hart a breather, and Miguel Cairo never had any personality conflicts with St. Louis fans. (He just wasn't as good a baseball hitter as we would have liked.)

Last year, when Yadier Molina didn't run out a pop-up and announcer Al Hrabosky had the audacity to mention that fact, manager Tony La Russa was angry. He said that Hrabosky "should be ashamed of himself."

Here's the video of the play in question. Bases loaded, Molina pops up to shallow left. Theriot goes out to field it, runners stay put so they aren't doubled off when the ball's caught in the shallow outfield. Soriano botches the play and drops the ball, all the runners move up a base, but Ankiel is thrown out at 2nd. Molina is safe at first. If McClellan thinks the fans should have booed Molina for that play, he's a fool, if only because they'd all be looking to the outfield and not at Molina's hustle to pass up Ankiel on the bases. If he doesn't think the fans should have booed him, he's talking out of his ass.

It was not as if Hrabosky slammed Molina. According to a newspaper account, Hrabosky said, "Molina did not run at all. I'm not saying you've got to sprint down there, but you've got to do something a little more than this. That's terrible."

He was safe. He drove in a run. Hrabosky's a clown. McClellan's some kind of whimsy writer who's decided to do his column about sports, one of the few sections of the newspaper where reporters have set beats that they genuinely know how to research on their own (in the case of very good writers like D. Goold.)

That pales compared to what old-timers like Harry Caray used to say about players, but that was then and this is now. Criticism is no longer considered fair play.

The Cardinals had one sub-.500 team in the last decade and have been one of the most successful teams of late. The Cardinals won the World Series in ~~1945~~ 1946, Caray's second season with the team and didn't make the postseason again until the memorable 1964 season. In the interim, Caray covered teams far more frustrating than the 2007 rebuilding year or the 2003 bullpen craptacular.

The best fans in baseball have evolved into the most devoted fans.

As I said, we never were the best fans in baseball, and it's silly and arrogant to claim it's so. And if you want to hear about our fan's recent devotion, give franchise saves leader Jason Isringhausen a phone call.

That's why La Russa felt comfortable in 2008 suggesting the team sign Barry Bonds. He knew Cardinals fans would embrace him. After all, he'd be a Cardinal.

Bull. Shit. La Russa knew that Barry Bonds is the second best hitter in the history of baseball (after the Babe) and I guess he trusted the anti-PED regime enough to give him a shot. The fans would have had a prickly relationship with Bonds just as we had with Templeton during his successful years prior to 1981.

There is something heartwarming about this unconditional love for all things Cardinal, but something strange, too. "The Stepford Wives" meet "Field of Dreams."

I understand. You're nostalgic for the '80s, when baseball fans weren't the non-booing automatons watching an imaginary game in the bleachers with a famous, reclusive author they'd kidnapped. What is this supposed to be except a childish insult at today's youths?

Last year, I heard normally sensible people suggesting that Matt Holliday would re-sign with the Cardinals if the fans somehow demonstrated the depth of their love. Huh? It's not all about money? No, said the most devoted fans in baseball. Love can conquer all.

I suppose it's possible that there is a non-zero-cardinality intersection for the sets of Cardinal fans, hippies, and sensible people, but this anecdote only tells me that some of your friends are dopes.

After Holliday dropped a fly ball in the playoffs, the Cardinals fans gave him a standing ovation when the team returned home.

Matt Holliday put up a 168 OPS+ after joining the Cardinals. The last time the Cardinals had a player aside from Albert Pujols put up offensive numbers that far better than league average was the great MV3 season of 2004, when Jim Edmonds had an OPS+ of 170 (Scott Rolen was at 157, a league-average player is at 100.)

Now try to follow this, McClellan: Win Expectancy measures the percentage of the time the home team wins a game given a particular game situation. Before Holliday took that line drive to the groin, we were up by one on the road with two outs in the ninth and the bases empty. 17.3% of games played from 1977 through 2006 in which the identical situation came up were won by the home team (see for yourself), so the teams that had been in the Cardinals situation went on to win 82.7% of the time. After Holliday misplayed Loney's drive, the situation was visiting team up by a run, two outs, runner on second. The visiting team won in such a situation 81.6% of the time. Holliday had gotten us to the playoffs, then cost us, historically, a little over a percentage point in win expectancy with that play. Ryan Franklin, who'd struggled down the stretch, then walked a batter, gave up a tying single on a cock-high curve to Jabba the Hutt that with a little luck would have been hit slightly earlier and been nabbed by Brenden Ryan, walked another batter, and gave up another single to send everyone home.

Two days later, do you expect fans to greet Matt Holliday at the start of an elimination game in the NLDS with a round of catcalls after the boost he'd provided in the regular season? Perhaps if the Cards had managed a lead and Tony went to Franklin to close it out you would have heard some booing, but I'd expect nervous clapping would be more widespread.

These demonstrations of unconditional love can be classy or strange.

The fans' love for Matt Holliday was surely conditional on him either getting his bat going in Game 3 of the NLDS (many fans soured on him after that series, trust me) or on him re-signing with the Cardinals (some are soured on him for the way Boras extended the negotiations and all but a small minority would have hated him if he'd gone to the Mets. If he'd signed with a NL Central team, he would be the most reviled visiting player in St. Louis in 2010 and beyond.)

I thought it was strange when La Russa was given a standing ovation by a spring-training crowd the day after being arrested for driving under the influence

The folks who show up to Spring Training are a pretty die-hard bunch. McClellan sees strange devotion and unconditional love; I see forgiveness and support. It's difficult to communicate complex messages in cheering crowd. It's just too difficult to coordinate a chant of: "You made a mistake and are getting destroyed in the press. We don't particularly respect the press because of their pack mentality. Don't screw up like this again. We hope this isn't a distraction at your job. Get past this and win some games this year."

[B]ut I thought it was classy when Cardinals fans gave Jim Edmonds an ovation when he returned as a Cub. After all, Edmonds had some big years here. Had the ovation for Holliday been of that variety — a thank you for the good half-year he had here — I'd have thought it was classy. But it seemed more about "Stay here. We love you."

Are all standing ovations either Classy or Strange? Can't there be supportive standing ovations? I was enthusiastically part of the standing ovation we gave to Larry Walker after his first plate appearance in Busch Stadium. (A strikeout). I don't know how that fit into McClellan's Bi-Modal Ontology of the Standing O, but I liked it and Larry liked it. I imagine the fans at game 3 liked cheering for Holliday after he'd had a bad game and needed a good one; I imagine he did, too. I also think cheering for a guy when's he's introduced to the field makes more sense than booing for him.

Not surprisingly, at the end of the year, the ovation meant nothing. Holliday became a free agent. He even indicated a preference for the big-market teams on the coasts, but that did not work out, and he signed a $120 million contract to come back here. That was great news for the Cardinals, but I still hear people talking about how Holliday ended up where he wanted to be.

How did he indicate a preference for the coasts? He's consistently said that he wanted a long-term contract with a no-trade clause. His agent wanted to get him Texeira money and flirted with the deep-pockets, big-market coastal teams in an attempt to shake that kind of coin loose, if only to drive the negotiations with the Cardinals. (Did McClellan take seriously the reports of the East Coast Orioles designs on Matt Holliday?) Holliday signed for one fewer year and $60 million less than Texeira's contract and includes $2 million dollars of annual salary deferred without interest, for the record. The contract is similarly a year shorter than the extension Rolen signed with the Cards after the season we acquired him via trade. He got a fair contract for a free agent of his skill and durability. I look forward to watching him play for the next several years and pity bitter nostalgists whose memories to be made will be marred by Scott Boras' posturing.

He didn't. That body of water near Busch Stadium is not an ocean. It's a river. You can see across it. That's a clue it's not an ocean.

This paragraph mocks itself.

The latest standing ovation, of course, was given to Mark McGwire at the team's Winter Warm-Up last weekend. Again, it seemed a demonstration of unconditional love.

Love for Mark McGwire is conditional on how well the Cardinals bat this season. He's done good work with Skip Schumaker and Chris Duncan (who was a potent bat in our lineup when healthy). If Brenden Ryan, who's working out with McGwire this offseason, breaks camp with some ability to take walks and drive the ball, Mark McGwire will deserve all the credit he gets.

The standing ovation, I'd wager, was largely as enthusiastic as it was after the high-horsed media coverage of his confession. My immediate reaction was similar to that of baseball's greatest active writer, Joe Posnanski. It was the Top Story on Robin Meade's show when I woke up, where the Chicago native sports reporter was glowing in his shock and disdain for McGwire. McClellan's colleague Bernie Micklasz put it well:

Never surprised by my media brethren. Step 1: moralize and demand that McGwire come clean; Step: 2: moralize and condemn when he does.

That's how it happened, let no one imagine it otherwise.

At that same event, Jack Clark was booed. The former Cardinals slugger had had the temerity to call McGwire a cheat and a fraud, and to say that all the steroid users should be banned from baseball.

Jack the Ripper's '87 season should have been enough to earn him the love of all Cardinals fans in perpetuity. I don't agree with his opinion here, though. McGwire's the whipping boy right now, but he's been more honorable about his steroids use by admitting to it late than, for example, Rafael Palmeiro, who vigorously denied using before being outed by leaked test results; or Sammy Sosa, who feigned ignorance of the English language at the hearing that turned Mark McGwire from the man who saved baseball from the strike into the butt of jokes.

I don't feel that strongly about it myself. I wouldn't even ban steroid users from the Hall of Fame. That's a subjective thing anyway — why aren't Ted Simmons and Ken Boyer in the Hall?

Everything he's written here is unobjectionable.

[S]o I'd look at the steroid users and try to figure out if they'd have been superstars without performance-enhancing drugs. Bonds and Roger Clemens? Yes.

How did McClellan come to these (certainly correct) conclusions?

McGwire? Without steroids, he was at best Dave Kingman.

This is pure horse shit. Dave Kingman walked in 8.2% of his career plate appearances. Mark McGwire walked in 17.2% of his plate appearances. McGwire slugged over .600 in ten of sixteen seasons and over .700 in four seasons; Kingman slugged over .600 once in his sixteen seasons. I don't have any reason to believe that steroids are anything resembling a magical route to hitting baseballs as well as Mark McGwire did in his career, even if you start at Kingman's level, assuming he didn't use, too. The fact that the vast majority of players who are known to have failed a drug test were, frankly, lousy players is evidence enough of that. That professional writers are perpetuating the myth that steroids are just that effective strikes me as irresponsible. For what I consider the most reasonable responses to McGwire's confession: pick a Dan, either Dan.

While I would not put him in the Hall of Fame, I would not ban him from baseball. I believe in the redemptive power of forgiveness. But to forgive is one thing and to cheer wildly is another. The most devoted fans in baseball would give McGwire a standing ovation. The best fans in baseball would not. They would have too much respect for the game.

He was an exciting player to watch and people are excited to see if he can improve our offense. Give 'em a break.

That's all. I just spent a couple of hours making fun of a crap whimsy column. Last time I'll ever read Bill McClellan.

If you need some brain-soap after reading that column, here's some good stuff.

Paul Petrino Hired

2009-12-13T20:20:00.005-06:00

The Illini decided recently to keep Ron Zook at the helm and bring in new coordinators and some other position coaches. The first coordinator hire is done with Paul Petrino coming on board as the Offensive Coordinator. He fits the criteria I was looking for: some experience with the NFL, some recruiting chops, and a general idea of how to work a tight end into the offense. Paul was a WR coach with the Falcons. Mark Tupper says, "Petrino has been a good recruiter with experience in Florida." His Arkansas team is graduating perhaps the best receiving TE in the class in D.J. Williams. I look forward to seeing if he can get the ball to Hubie Graham and London Davis a little better than Schulz' offense did for Michael Hoomanawanui in his injury-marred but still disappointing senior year.

I'll add that I'm not a fan of the idea of hiring a Special Teams coach. Our special teams have been terrible for years and I think we might be better off using that coaching spot elsewhere and letting the two coordinators figure out their own responsibilities and personnel assignments for special teams.

Updated: The word on the street (or at least on WDWS and the Topeka Capital-Journal is that Kansas State's Vic Koenning will be hired as the defensive coordinator. If true, that's exciting news. Kansas State had some very good special teams last year without a designated ST coach, by the way.

Some Things I Learned in the Past Week (Part I)

2009-12-08T17:34:00.006-06:00

It turns out that men-on-base information isn't preserved in the Gameday database. I hadn't ever noticed it before, but if you load up an old game like this one between the Angels and Blue Jays from 5/7/9 and look at any plate appearance aside from the final one, you'll find that the Runners on: dialog will never change to reflect the PA you're looking at, nor will the little dots appear on the field schematic to indicate a player's occupying the base.

The only place where that shows up, in fact, is in the gameday_Syn.xml file loaded by Gameday. There's a subtree in the file containing information about the next two batters and the current (final) pitch sequence, as well as containing nodes for the three bases with Boolean attributes to indicate occupation. That came as something of a snag for me this past week, but it's an intriguing one.

In any case, I've got to do something far more interesting than table-lookup for this part of the project to work but have a plan. So far, it's looking good—should have something quite amazing built by the time I hit the sheets tomorrow night.

Update: Some more stuff I learned this week: my data indicates that there were 283,862 plays or personnel changes made during the course of the 2009 MLB season. Of those, the most frequent were assisted groundball outs at 32,655 that didn't advance a runner, followed by 31,267 fly ball outs that didn't advance a runner. The third most frequent play type was the swinging strikeout: 26,918 of them. There were 13,726 walks issued with 1st base unoccupied and 7,861 pop outs. The most common hits were bases-empty singles on line drives followed by ground ball singles at 7,830 and 7,172, respectively. There were 3,602 two-throw double plays with outs at 1st and 2nd. 1933 batters struck out on foul tips. There were 9,896 pitching changes not involving a defensive switch. One batter lined into an unassisted triple play. Six other players hit into a triple play, four on liners, two on ground balls. Fifteen players hit inside the park home runs. 862 play-types occurred only once, out of 2,300 different play-types (suppressing player and position names).

Amazingly, this information has non-trivial uses... Trust me!

(Re-ran the data set, so the numbers changed at 10:23 from an hour or two earlier.)
((Turns out those numbers were wrong, but I do have them correctly now.))

Final update: I noticed what seemed to be some odd inconsistencies with that dataset and figured it out. Those counts include spring training and WBC games, so those numbers (and some of the underlying data) are a slightly screwy.

So What've I Been Up To...

2009-11-20T18:55:00.002-06:00

Looks like my last substantive post (he generously declared) was written back in early April and the last of any kind in late May. In the meantime, the sorta personal stuff has gone on Facebook and the baseball-related internet writing on Viva el Birdos.

It was a good summer: the weather was mild and pleasant and is now thoroughly missed. The cool summer terrified me after the frigid winter we'd just been through. So far, Autumn has been mild, too, although wet to a historic extreme.

I stopped taking classes this semester: I'm not currently a student, as I have more than enough credits. I'll need to register for 0 hours next semester to deposit and defend my dissertation, which is coming along pretty well now, although obviously not as quickly as anyone involved would prefer. My goal is to get the whole thing largely written before the New Year: a tall order, as I'm not quite half-way through, but the part I'm working through now is by far the most difficult. If I have it close to completion by the end of the year, I'll be very confident that the defense happens in the Spring semester. The work is very engaging and I'm fortunate my advisor hasn't abandoned me after all the time it has taken to get here.

I've been working for the same group, although as staff now instead of a student worker. My workload has been shifting away from production work a bit and more into software development and infrastructure (although I'm out in the field at least two or three times a week.) I wrote a daemon to wrap ffmpeg today in about an hour and a half that will dramatically improve our throughput speeds and, provided the right hardware, would allow us to perform campus-wide transcoding services, if requested, and it already has been for at least one large media provider on campus. I'll have the office all to myself Monday and Tuesday and have a bunch of projects that have sat on the shelf for too long ready to work on.

Over break, I'm looking forward to getting those projects knocked out and making some major progress on the research, as well as my second annual all-day Thanksgiving feast/football fest. Also happy for the Illinois Basketball season to truly get underway, as the football season was something of a let-down.

In short, things are good. Heading in the right direction. No complaints.

Congrats to Tim Lincecum: CY 2009

2009-11-19T21:54:00.001-06:00

I'm going to start writing garbage again here over the next week and see how it goes.

New Fence

2009-05-28T11:37:00.001-05:00

Snapped a few pictures of my fence that I spent the last week building. Worth the work. My backyard's a great place to hang out, now.

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

2009-05-14T13:40:00.001-05:00

The World's Best Illusion may explain why a curveball is so difficult to hit.

Bookmarking it for later

2009-05-12T11:48:00.001-05:00

Yikes. Proposed tax changes.

The Highest Number

2009-04-21T19:05:00.000-05:00

Haven't posted anything in a while. Better make it good.

Need a little help

2009-04-10T08:52:00.005-05:00

Thanks to everyone who participated. We got excellent data and are looking forward to providing live streaming services to the University of Illinois.

In other news

2009-04-06T20:35:00.002-05:00

Indonesian economy soars on strength of sweat socks export industry

Life can be cruel

2009-04-06T08:33:00.002-05:00

My ancient magnolia blooms right around April 1st each year. Last year, or the year before, a terrific storm blew through right after it bloomed and all the blossoms were torn off, which was quite a waste. This year, it snowed early in the morning on April 6th.

Here's hoping the blossoms hang tough and I can take a decent picture when the sun comes back out. If you look closely, you can see the plastic improvised greenhouses on the daffodils, tulips, and other assorted bulb plants. The snow will probably help my yard, though. I used my new drop spreader to put down some crabgrass preventer/fertilizer on Saturday and we've had mist and this light snow since then, so it should be well into the root system by Wednesday.

Opening Day Lineup

2009-04-05T18:29:00.002-05:00

TLR decided to amuse himself by releasing his opening day lineup today. And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth:

1. Brendan Ryan, 2B
2. Rick Ankiel, CF
3. Albert Pujols, 1B
4. Khalil Greene, SS
5. Ryan Ludwick, RF
6. Yadier Molina, C
7. Chris Duncan, LF
8. Brian Barden, 3B
9. Adam Wainwright, P

That Schumaker isn't starting comes as no surprise, he's no more effective against LHP's than the man he's replacing. That Freese is out in favor of Barden will cause many to question whether Tony Really Does Hate Rookies. I'll try my best to divine Tony's strategy here. I think he's expecting a low-scoring affair in the cold. I think he's concerned that Freese's achilles tendon might give him problems out in the field in said cold. I think he wants to have his core batters piled up 2-7, with good defense in the infield for all the ground balls. I think he'll want to use his bench pretty aggressively once one of the starting pitchers gets knocked out.

I expect to see, at some point, Skip PH in the pitcher's spot followed by Freese hitting for Ryan, with Skip taking over at second if the Cardinals hold a sizable lead.

I expect to see Razzle get his first MLB plate appearance. First hit would bring some beauty to an ugly day.

Of course, I expect to see the Cardinals win their home opener.

Mo was Right

2009-04-05T15:38:00.002-05:00

The Giants designated Luis Perdomo for assignment, which means that he'll pass through waivers then return to the Cardinals' farm system with all his option years intact. From Chris Haft's article:

Perdomo, 24, owned a 3.48 ERA through 10 Cactus League appearances. But his lack of command in his final three outings unnerved the Giants. In that stretch, he yielded five earned runs, allowed nine hits and walked three in 1 2/3 innings. He finished with a 6.75 ERA to go with 17 hits allowed and eight walks in 12 innings. Perdomo's likely to return to the St. Louis Cardinals, who lost him to the Giants in last December's Rule 5.

I thought it unlikely that Perdomo would stick with the Giants after they overpaid for a few veteran RHRPs in the offseason, and even less likely when they announced that they'd use an 11-man pitching staff. The Giants eventually chose to take 12 pitchers ~~North~~ West with them, and Perdomo, fortunately for the Cardinals, will not be among them.

Perdomo's selection in the Rule 5 had caused some amount of consternation with well-informed Cardinals fans. We traded Anthony Reyes, our top pitching prospect from a few years ago, for Luis Perdomo. That Mo left him unprotected last December—with open spots on the 40-man and Matt Scherer was added after having a slightly less impressive season, albeit at a higher level—was a move worth questioning. Mostly, I think, the Perdomo drama had to do with latent frustration over Anthony Reyes' loss of fastball velocity and lack of a secondary pitch to use against right-handed batters.

In any case, Mo was right. His gamble preserved an option year for Perdomo, who will certainly be added to the 40-man next winter if he isn't traded away from the distinct depth the Cardinals farm has in its advanced RHRP corps, especially now that Jess Todd (WWDUA) has joined it. I suppose there's a chance that another team claims Perdomo, but I find it hard to imagine a team finalizing their opening day rosters and then changing their minds and stiffing one of their own prospects for the chance that this guy can make it all year.

Roster's Set

2009-04-02T20:33:00.003-05:00

Matthew Leach has the rundown.

I think that I guessed pretty well. I nailed the pitching staff, except for my failure to guess that the FO would pick up Dennys Reyes as a second lefty specialist.

Everybody I guessed would be in the infield for the opening day roster was correct, except the Cards are carrying Joe Thurston as a lefty utility guy. I thought that Mather and Barton would make the team for a good one-two punch of power and on-base/running skills. I still think Barton will help the team more than, say Brendan Ryan. I think I agree that Ryan's chances of clearing waivers will be improved by a month on the major league roster and Barton will benefit from a month of everyday work at AAA. So I can sort of see the reasoning at work if I squint right.

Here's hoping my breakout candidate breaks out indeed. I'm debating whether to announce a minor-league sleeper to watch after the last one got cut, much to my surprise, while I was down in Jupiter.

Gameday Links 2009 (Week VI)

2009-04-02T15:49:00.002-05:00

This gets us into up to the regular season, eh. I added the minor league teams that are playing big league teams this week to the script on my 'puter, but not the version I uploaded in the last installment.

Two Links

2009-04-01T16:35:00.003-05:00

Nick Vatterott on taking the office betting pool too seriously and relying on the microwave clock.

Back

2009-03-31T09:28:00.003-05:00

I'm back from my adventures—will have pictures and prose up shortly after I dig myself out from under more than a week away from the office.

Gameday Links 2009 (Weeks IV & V)

2009-03-18T12:34:00.002-05:00

For those interested, the python script I've used to generate these for the past coupla years is here. The Python interpreter is free, open-source, and ridiculously useful software, available here.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

NY Yankees at Houston
Toronto at Philadelphia
Minnesota at Pittsburgh
Baltimore at St. Louis
Cincinnati at Tampa Bay
Atlanta at NY Mets
LA Angels at Chicago Sox
San Francisco at Chicago Cubs
Texas at San Diego
Milwaukee at Arizona
Florida at Washington
Seattle at Kansas City

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Baltimore at Washington
Philadelphia at Florida
St. Louis at Tampa Bay
Houston at NY Mets
Cleveland at Milwaukee
Oakland at Texas
Colorado at LA Dodgers
Chicago Sox at San Francisco
Chicago Cubs at Seattle
Detroit at Atlanta
Boston at Cincinnati
Toronto at NY Yankees
San Diego at Seattle

Friday, March 20, 2009

NY Mets at Baltimore
Pittsburgh at Boston
Washington at Detroit
NY Yankees at Minnesota
Tampa Bay at Toronto
Florida at Atlanta
Cincinnati at Houston
Philadelphia at St. Louis
Arizona at LA Angels
San Francisco at Chicago Sox
Oakland at Cleveland
Milwaukee at Seattle
San Diego at Chicago Cubs
Texas at Colorado
LA Dodgers at Kansas City

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Tampa Bay at Baltimore
Houston at Toronto
NY Mets at Atlanta
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati
St. Louis at Washington
Minnesota at Philadelphia
Boston at Florida
Detroit at NY Yankees
Milwaukee at LA Angels
Chicago Cubs at Chicago Sox
LA Dodgers at Cleveland
San Francisco at Oakland
Oakland at Seattle
Colorado at Texas
Kansas City at Arizona
San Diego at San Francisco

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Philadelphia at Boston
Florida at Detroit
Toronto at Minnesota
Washington at Houston
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh
Baltimore at St. Louis
NY Yankees at Tampa Bay
Atlanta at NY Mets
LA Angels at Kansas City
San Francisco at Milwaukee
Chicago Sox at Oakland
Seattle at Chicago Cubs
Texas at LA Dodgers
Arizona at San Diego
Cleveland at Colorado

Monday, March 23, 2009

Detroit at Boston
Baltimore at Minnesota
Toronto at Cincinnati
Florida at Houston
NY Yankees at Philadelphia
Tampa Bay at Pittsburgh
Washington at St. Louis
LA Dodgers at LA Angels
Chicago Cubs at Oakland
Kansas City at San Diego
Seattle at San Francisco
Milwaukee at Colorado

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Washington at Baltimore
Philadelphia at Toronto
NY Mets at Houston
Minnesota at Florida
San Diego at LA Angels
Chicago Sox at Cleveland
Texas at Seattle
Colorado at Chicago Cubs
San Francisco at Arizona
Pittsburgh at Atlanta
Boston at NY Yankees
Oakland at Kansas City
Seattle at LA Dodgers

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Boston at Cincinnati
Houston at St. Louis
Detroit at NY Mets
Colorado at LA Angels
Oakland at Chicago Sox
LA Dodgers at Milwaukee
Cleveland at San Diego
Atlanta at Washington
Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay
Arizona at Texas

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Florida at Baltimore
Toronto at Atlanta
NY Yankees at Philadelphia
NY Mets at St. Louis
Arizona at Chicago Sox
LA Angels at Cleveland
Texas at Milwaukee
Kansas City at Seattle
LA Dodgers at Colorado
Tampa Bay at Detroit
Minnesota at Cincinnati
Chicago Cubs at San Francisco

Friday, March 27, 2009

St. Louis at Boston
Tampa Bay at Minnesota
Detroit at Atlanta
Philadelphia at Houston
Baltimore at Florida
Colorado at Seattle
Chicago Sox at Chicago Cubs
Kansas City at LA Dodgers
Cleveland at San Francisco
LA Angels at Arizona
Toronto at Pittsburgh
Washington at NY Mets
Cincinnati at NY Yankees
Milwaukee at Texas
San Diego at Oakland

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Minnesota at Boston
Detroit at Toronto
NY Yankees at Atlanta
Houston at Washington
Philadelphia at Pittsburgh
Baltimore at St. Louis
Cincinnati at Tampa Bay
Florida at NY Mets
Seattle at LA Angels
LA Dodgers at Chicago Sox
Texas at Kansas City
Oakland at Milwaukee
San Francisco at San Diego
Cleveland at Arizona
Chicago Cubs at Colorado

Sunday, March 29, 2009

NY Mets at Baltimore
Atlanta at Detroit
St. Louis at Minnesota
Tampa Bay at Cincinnati
Toronto at Houston
Boston at Philadelphia
Washington at Florida
Pittsburgh at NY Yankees
Colorado at Oakland
Kansas City at Seattle
LA Angels at Texas
Cleveland at Chicago Cubs
San Diego at LA Dodgers
Milwaukee at San Francisco
Chicago Sox at Arizona

Monday, March 30, 2009

Tampa Bay at Minnesota
NY Yankees at Toronto
Boston at Atlanta
Detroit at Washington
Houston at Philadelphia
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh
Florida at St. Louis
Chicago Sox at LA Angels
Chicago Cubs at Kansas City
Seattle at Milwaukee
Oakland at LA Dodgers
Texas at San Francisco
Arizona at Colorado
San Diego at Cleveland
Baltimore at NY Mets

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

St. Louis at Baltimore
Tampa Bay at Boston
Washington at Detroit
Pittsburgh at Minnesota
NY Yankees at Cincinnati
Colorado at Chicago Sox
Seattle at Cleveland
Kansas City at Oakland
San Francisco at Texas
LA Angels at Chicago Cubs
LA Dodgers at Arizona
Atlanta at Houston
Toronto at Philadelphia
NY Mets at Florida
Milwaukee at San Diego

Gameday Links 2009 (Week III)

2009-03-12T11:06:00.004-05:00

Sorry these are coming in at the wire. Been kind of a busy morning. Again, anything with a question mark next to it won't work because I don't have a code for one of the teams.

[Note: ubeddie at VeB pointed out that Friday the 13th's early game was missing... it's added below. Don't blame the script, though, it's not listed on ESPN's schedule. Once again, I embarrass myself for trusting ESPN information...]

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Washington at Atlanta
Minnesota at Pittsburgh
Boston at St. Louis
Philadelphia at Tampa Bay
Colorado at LA Angels
Chicago Sox at Kansas City
San Diego at Milwaukee
Arizona at Oakland
Texas at Seattle
Japan at Chicago Cubs
Korea at LA Dodgers
Florida at NY Mets

Friday, March 13, 2009

St. Louis at Baltimore (Early game)
NY Mets at Detroit
Tampa Bay at Toronto
Pittsburgh at Philadelphia
Atlanta at Florida
Chicago Cubs at LA Angels
Oakland at Cleveland
Texas at Kansas City
Kansas City at Milwaukee
Seattle at Chicago Cubs
Texas at LA Dodgers
Chicago Sox at San Diego
Seattle at Arizona
San Francisco at Colorado
Baltimore at St. Louis (Late game)
NY Yankees at Boston
Cincinnati at Minnesota
Washington at Houston

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Boston at Baltimore
Toronto at Detroit
Florida at Minnesota
Tampa Bay at Cincinnati
Philadelphia at Houston
NY Yankees at Pittsburgh
Atlanta at St. Louis
Washington at NY Mets
Houston at NY Yankees
Texas at Chicago Sox
Arizona at Kansas City
LA Dodgers at Milwaukee
San Francisco at Oakland
LA Angels at Chicago Cubs
Cleveland at San Diego
San Diego at San Francisco
Seattle at Colorado

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Baltimore at Boston
Cincinnati at Toronto
Houston at Atlanta
Detroit at Washington
St. Louis at Philadelphia
NY Mets at Florida
Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay
Minnesota at NY Yankees
Oakland at LA Angels
Milwaukee at Cleveland
Chicago Sox at Seattle
San Diego at Texas
Colorado at LA Dodgers
Kansas City at San Francisco
Chicago Cubs at Arizona

Monday, March 16, 2009

St. Louis at Detroit
Baltimore at Minnesota
Boston at Toronto
Washington at Florida
Philadelphia at NY Yankees
Kansas City at Chicago Sox
Seattle at Cleveland
Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee
LA Dodgers at Oakland
LA Dodgers at Seattle
LA Angels at San Francisco
Colorado at Arizona
Tampa Bay at Pittsburgh

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Minnesota at Boston
Houston at Detroit
NY Mets at Atlanta
Cincinnati at Philadelphia
Arizona at Oakland
Cleveland at Texas
Chicago Cubs at LA Dodgers
LA Angels at San Diego
Milwaukee at San Francisco
Chicago Sox at Arizona
Kansas City at Colorado
Pittsburgh at NY Yankees

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Baltimore at St. Louis
NY Yankees at Houston
Toronto at Philadelphia
Minnesota at Pittsburgh
Cincinnati at Tampa Bay
Atlanta at NY Mets
LA Angels at Chicago Sox
San Francisco at Chicago Cubs
Texas at San Diego
Milwaukee at Arizona
Florida at Washington
Seattle at Kansas City

Finally

2009-03-05T17:28:00.003-06:00

It only took them a little under three years to take my advice, but the Cardinals today got around to signing Dennys Reyes.

Reyes is a stud against left-handers, but has some trouble against righties. Hopefully he'll be protected a little better than Ron Villone was last season.

Gameday Links 2009 (Week II)

2009-03-04T11:10:00.002-06:00

The Cardinals have an off-day, so I'll go ahead and post these now. As before, WBC teams are handled by the script, but not college teams (the college teams' websites will probably have nice gamecast things that are fully functional anyways.)

Links with a question mark before them won't work for that reason.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Puerto Rico at Boston
United States at Philadelphia
Florida at Baltimore
Washington at Detroit
Pittsburgh at Cincinnati
Panama at Houston
Canada at NY Yankees
Netherlands at Minnesota
Venezuela at Atlanta
Italy at NY Mets
Dominican Republic at St. Louis
Australia at Milwaukee
South Africa at Oakland
LA Angels at Seattle
San Diego at Texas
Chicago Sox at LA Dodgers
Oakland at San Francisco
Mexico at Colorado
Chicago Sox at Chicago Cubs

Friday, March 6, 2009

Washington at Baltimore
Florida at Boston
Cincinnati at Minnesota
Tampa Bay at Pittsburgh
NY Mets at St. Louis
San Francisco at LA Angels
Australia at Chicago Sox
Milwaukee at Cleveland
Texas at Kansas City
Seattle at Oakland
LA Dodgers at Chicago Cubs
Colorado at San Diego
Arizona at Mexico
Philadelphia at Toronto
Houston at Atlanta
Detroit at NY Yankees

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Pittsburgh at Minnesota
Cincinnati at Toronto
St. Louis at Houston
Detroit at Philadelphia
Baltimore at Florida
Boston at Tampa Bay
Washington at NY Mets
Atlanta at NY Yankees
Kansas City at Cleveland
Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee
Chicago Sox at Texas
Seattle at LA Dodgers
Oakland at San Diego
Colorado at San Francisco
LA Angels at Arizona

Sunday, March 8, 2009

?Michigan at NY Mets
Minnesota at Baltimore
Tampa Bay at Boston
NY Yankees at Detroit
Philadelphia at Atlanta
Toronto at Cincinnati
NY Mets at Washington
Houston at Pittsburgh
Florida at St. Louis
San Francisco at LA Angels
LA Dodgers at Chicago Sox
Milwaukee at Kansas City
Cleveland at Oakland
Arizona at Seattle
Texas at Chicago Cubs
Oakland at San Francisco
San Diego at Colorado

Monday, March 9, 2009

Cincinnati at Philadelphia
Boston at Pittsburgh
Minnesota at Tampa Bay
Baltimore at NY Mets
Toronto at NY Yankees
Cleveland at Chicago Sox
LA Angels at Oakland
LA Dodgers at Texas
Kansas City at Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee at San Francisco
San Diego at Arizona
Houston at Washington
Detroit at Florida

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Baltimore at Boston
Atlanta at Houston
NY Mets at Washington
Detroit at St. Louis
Toronto at Tampa Bay
Cleveland at LA Angels
Chicago Cubs at Seattle
San Francisco at Texas
Arizona at LA Dodgers
Oakland at Colorado
Cincinnati at NY Yankees

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Minnesota at Baltimore
NY Yankees at Detroit
Pittsburgh at Toronto
Houston at Cincinnati
Atlanta at Philadelphia
St. Louis at Florida
Milwaukee at Chicago Sox
Colorado at Cleveland
Seattle at Kansas City

Sunday Dinner

2009-03-01T21:09:00.004-06:00

Here's what I cooked up for the first Sunday dinner in Lent:

I used the A.B. turkey roasting method, using quarter-batch of the brine and then skipped the high-roast stage, roasting it at 350 until the boob meat hit 165. Unbelievably juicy, especially the leg meat.

The brussels sprouts were sauteed in a covered skillet with about a quarter stick of butter, say a tablespoon and a half of olive oil, the juice from two lemons, half a slivered onion, two cloves of garlic, salt, pepper, and parsley. I cut their stumps off so they'd stand up, caramelized the onions, and put the sprouts in for a minute or so on high heat before dropping it to a simmer and leaving it alone for ten minutes. They were perfect.

My first time cooking both cornish hens and brussels sprouts. (Tiny chickens and tiny cabbages. Cute, eh?) Pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Gameday Links 2009 (Week I)

2009-02-26T11:43:00.010-06:00

Dusted off the handy python script I wrote last Spring (or the one before)...

The links for ~~the WBC and~~ college teams won't work, but I'll fix them once I find out the team code gameday uses for them.

[2/27: Found the WBC team codes from the 2006 gamedays during lunch break and fixed the script. Nothing I can really do for the college games.]

Thursday, February 26, 2009

St. Louis at Baltimore
Pittsburgh at Boston
Houston at Atlanta
Minnesota at Cincinnati
Detroit at Washington
Toronto at Philadelphia
Florida at NY Mets
Tampa Bay at NY Yankees
Oakland at LA Angels
Arizona at Cleveland
Texas at Kansas City
Milwaukee at Chicago Cubs
Seattle at San Diego
LA Dodgers at San Francisco
Chicago Sox at Colorado

Friday, February 27, 2009

NY Yankees at Minnesota
Detroit at Toronto
Philadelphia at Cincinnati
Houston at Washington
Atlanta at Pittsburgh
Baltimore at Florida
Boston at Tampa Bay
St. Louis at NY Mets
Colorado at LA Angels
San Diego at Cleveland
Milwaukee at Oakland
LA Dodgers at Seattle
Chicago Cubs at Texas
Kansas City at San Francisco
Chicago Sox at Arizona

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Florida at Baltimore
NY Mets at Detroit
Atlanta at Toronto
Pittsburgh at Houston
Tampa Bay at Philadelphia
Washington at St. Louis
?Northeastern at Boston
Minnesota at NY Yankees
San Diego at Kansas City
LA Angels at Milwaukee
Cleveland at Oakland
San Francisco at Seattle
Chicago Sox at Chicago Cubs
Texas at Arizona
LA Dodgers at Colorado
Cincinnati at Boston
Cincinnati at Boston

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Boston at Minnesota
Philadelphia at Atlanta
NY Yankees at Cincinnati
Baltimore at Washington
Detroit at Pittsburgh
St. Louis at Florida
Toronto at Tampa Bay
Houston at NY Mets
Kansas City at LA Angels
Colorado at Cleveland
Seattle at Texas
Chicago Sox at LA Dodgers
Chicago Cubs at San Diego
Milwaukee at San Francisco
Oakland at Arizona

Monday, March 2, 2009

Boston at Baltimore
?Fla. Southern at Detroit
Philadelphia at Toronto
NY Yankees at Houston
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh
Tampa Bay at St. Louis
Seattle at Chicago Sox
Texas at Cleveland
San Francisco at Kansas City
Arizona at Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee at San Diego
LA Angels at Colorado

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Cincinnati at Boston
Venezuela at Detroit
Puerto Rico at Minnesota
Canada at Toronto
Panama at Atlanta
Italy at Washington
Netherlands at Pittsburgh
Dominican Republic at Florida
Houston at Tampa Bay
St. Louis at NY Mets
United States at NY Yankees
Cleveland at Kansas City
Colorado at Milwaukee
Oakland at Chicago Cubs
LA Dodgers at San Diego
Arizona at San Francisco

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Dominican Republic at Baltimore
Panama at Detroit
United States at Toronto
NY Yankees at Atlanta
Venezuela at Houston
NY Mets at Washington
Canada at Philadelphia
Minnesota at Pittsburgh
Italy at Florida
South Africa at LA Angels
Chicago Cubs at Cleveland
Chicago Sox at Oakland
Kansas City at Texas
San Francisco at LA Dodgers
Netherlands at Cincinnati
Mexico at Arizona
Puerto Rico at Tampa Bay
Australia at Seattle
Chicago Cubs at Chicago Sox
Chicago Sox at Chicago Cubs

2009 Roster Prognostication

2009-02-20T11:43:00.002-06:00

Being that prematurely guessing how the roster situation will play out is one of my favorite things to BS about (see this bit of bad advice for evidence), I'll stake out an early claim on how the opening day roster will shake out.

Starting Rotation

Adam "Wagonmaker" Wainwright
Chris "Carp" Carpenter
Kyle "No Nickname" Lohse
Todd "Colonel/Throw Them 'bows" Wellemeyer
Joel "Sole Survivor of the Planet Krypton" Piñeiro

These guys are all set it stone, barring injury or continued panty-bunching.

Bullpen

Josh Kinney: RHRP
Kyle McClellan:RHRP
Ryan Franklin: RHRP
Jason Motte: RHRP
Brad Thompson: RHRP
Trever Miller: LHRP
Ian Ostlund: LHRP

Surprising prediction, is it not? I don't think the Cards would want to cut Wonderbrad, and that'll squeeze out one of Motte or Perez from the five-man group of RHRPs, unless they decide to keep stretching out K-Mac as a starter in Memphis, which I would think to be a poor use of resources. I think they'll like what they see in Perez, but that his tendency to walk batters will keep him from stepping up and seizing the closer's ring. They'll send him to Memphis to work on throwing his breaking stuff for strikes and bring him up by the end of April. The staff goes with Motte because of his combination of velocity and accuracy—and also because he gives you a legitimate third option at catcher, allowing Tony to PH his bench left-handed batting OFs for his catchers with confidence. The ninth inning will be handled by working the matchups.

Trever Miller should have a great camp and is guaranteed the primary LHRP spot, barring the usual caveats, and Ian Ostlund narrowly wins a tight race for #2 LHRP on the strength of his refusal to walk batters.

(Non-Pitching) Infielders

Yadier Molina: C
Jason LaRue: C
Albert Pujols: 1B
Brendan Ryan: 2B
Skip Schumaker: 2B (OF)
Khalil Greene: SS
David Freese: 3B
Brian Barden: UT

I'm still skeptical about Skip moving to 2nd, but recognize that he's always a fantastic Spring hitter and that he and the organization are dedicated to making it happen, so find it a little hard to believe that Joe Thurston will beat him out for the opening day gig. I think eventually Joe will get the call-up to take over as the lefty in the 2B platoon, but he's on a minor-league contract, so the team will see how quickly Skip learns on the job. Both Brian Barden and Brendan Ryan are out of options, versatile in the field, and complementary in their offensive skillsets, so expect them both to make the team.

Outfield

Rick Ankiel
Ryan Ludwick
Chris Duncan
Joe Mather
Brian Barton

Leaving Colby Rasmus off this roster was a tough call, but it just makes so much business sense to wait until May to add him—and you get the benefit of another RH bat in either Barton or Mather. Ideally, Rasmus rakes the first few weeks at AAA and makes it easy to give him his debut—perhaps as early as the second homestand of the 2009 season.

In the meantime, your lineups could look like this:
Vs Left-handed Starter

Barton-Freese-Pujols-Ludwick-Ankiel-Molina-Greene-PITCHER-Ryan

Vs. Right-handed Starter

Schumaker-Duncan-Pujols-Ludwick-Ankiel-Freese-Greene-PITCHER-Molina

Never Thought I'd See It

2009-02-16T12:35:00.003-06:00

But Chester Frazier has Illinois fans recommending him for league MVP... It's unrealistic considering his shooting is so poor that the shots he does take are largely just to keep defenses honest, but after the kind of abuse that fell on his shoulders from the fans last season, it's great to see him going out with that kind of respect from people who love the program and pony up to keep it going.

He's a class act who's been through far too much the past three years, very gratifying to see him finishing his time here on top. I'll be interested in seeing where he starts his coaching career next year.

Also of interest in the world of college basketball, John Gasaway, formerly of Big Ten Wonk fame and now at Basketball Prospectus, is unilaterally renaming the standard deviation measurement. I think it'll stick, for a few years at least.

Breakout Season

2009-02-08T21:38:00.015-06:00

I'm going to pick a player to have a very big season in 2009, causing immense confusion for a lot of Cardinal fans wearing #54 t-shirt jerseys.

Here are a couple of age-25 season lines:

	Level	Ave	OBP	SLG
Player A	AA	.297	.378	.502
Player B	AAA	.298	.361	.478

These aren't completely dissimilar lines from similarly sized (5'11", 190-195) right-handed batters who bounced around the infield as minor leaguers. The two players hail from the same organization, in fact, and Player B was in AAA during Player A's age 25 season, although a year younger.

After his age-25 season, Player A was taken in the Rule 5 draft, and ZiPS projected a .231/.302/.363 line for him that year. He far exceeded it, batting .282/.339/.480 with 27 HR in his rookie season. Player A is, of course, Dan Uggla and many Cardinal fans would be delighted if Mo would trade away valuable prospects for him now that he's 29 and an established major league slugging 2B. Player B is Brian Barden—after his age-25 campaign in 2006, his OPS fell below .800 for the first time at AAA and he fell out of the Diamondbacks' plans. After he was DFA'd, the Cardinals picked him up and he's been a utility man in Memphis.

I don't think that Brian Barden is going to have a season like Uggla had in 2006 or do to the league what Uggla has done, but I think he'll be a useful piece on the 2009 Cardinals and am rooting for him to make the team. Barden's slick with the glove, so the defensive dropoff from Kennedy to Barden would be negligible in the amount of playing time we're likely talking about. He's also an excellent defensive 3B and can play shortstop competently (i.e. far better than Miles, doubtfully as well as Ryan). He has power potential: he hit 9 HR last season in Memphis and hit 15 and 16 in consecutive years as his prospect star shone most brightly in 2005-2006. He's right-handed, so would platoon well with Kennedy (in the PCL last season, his platoon split was .266/.325/.394 vs. rights and a robust .326/.400/.481 against lefties, although his career minor league splits aren't quite that drastic.)

Brendan Ryan has an option year remaining and Barden does not, so as long as Barden shows up to camp ready to swing the bat, I expect he'll make the team as the backup MIF, with Freese the starter at third, and six outfielders heading North when Spring Training ends. Last Spring, Barden went 2-11 with 2 walks. I expect he'll get a longer look this go around and will be rooting for him all the way.

(As for that .231/.302/.363 line ZiPS projected for Uggla in 2006, league multipliers are a bastard... Barden is projected to go .254/.307/.359 this year. Here's hoping he revives his career and surpasses those rates by a great deal.)

Baseball season can't get here soon enough, but until then, we have Look Around You to keep us informed and entertained. And that reminds me of this.

Update: What the hell? The Cardinals are releasing Adam Kennedy... I did not see that one coming...

Per the irreplaceable Derrick Goold:

Mozeliak said the intent is to fill the position "from within the organization."

Club says B-Ryan, Thurston, Barden, T. Greene and, yes, Schumaker are candidates. Free agents Hudson, Durham and Grudzielanek still unsigned.

It took me about ten minutes, but I've warmed to the idea. A Thurston/Barden platoon at second would cost twice the league minimum and produce quite a bit while providing good defense and positional versatility. Thurston hit .316/.367/.456 with 11 HR and 19 SB last season for Pawtucket.

Updated 4/14/2009: It looks like I'm full of it and Brian Barden was not on Arizona's 40-man prior to the 2006 season. I'm pretty confused about why he was DFA'd by two teams in 2008, though...

Wile E. Coyote Would Be Proud

2009-01-29T16:40:00.001-06:00

Just saw this clip on CNBC of a foiled jailbreak attempt in the land of Kiwis.

Crime doesn't pay.

Read it and Weep

2009-01-28T20:56:00.003-06:00

A 40-Year Wish List: You won't believe what's in that stimulus bill.

Via Brutally Honest, where the bill is delightfully mocked as a "stifle-us bill."

Neither mentions the windfall ACORN may be in store in this $90 billion short-term stimulus package riding athwart close to $750,000,000,000 worth of pork projects and state business that does anything but stimulate private sector job growth and wealth creation based on actual market demands (yelling, "STOP!").

Stick it to The Man

2009-01-21T19:45:00.005-06:00

If you read this page last year, which would've been something like fifteen posts ago, it would seem, you'd know that I find the whole idea of the government banning smoking tobacco in bars to be about as sensible as banning organ music at baseball games: some people may find it old-fashioned (but so is the game of baseball and drinking in public, I'm sad to say on both counts), but it's an integral part of the deal to the purists. Busch stadium isn't Busch stadium without Ernie Hays, and more glaringly, a bar without a bit of a smoky haze is just a noisy room with a chicken-fryer stinking up the joint.

Illinois passed a state-wide smoking ban last year after perhaps the greatest three months of perfection ever experienced: the city of Champaign repealed their own local ban until the state-side ban took place. Some bars allowed smoking, some didn't: everyone was happy—every business profited by catering to the two different sorts of bar customers as demarcated by the Line of the Tavernacle Purity.

It's not bad in the summertime—good conversations are had outside. It's pretty awful in the winter. I'm am not surprised that no statistics are being made public about the incidence of GHB-related assaults from women leaving drinks unattended while going outside for a breath of fresh air, but my guess is they're up.

I got a Christmas present that's a nice stopgap between now and the return of civility (ha.). I got a Pee-Wee nicotine vaporizer from PureSmoker.com. The device looks like a large batty (one-hitter, whatever the kids are calling it nowadays). The front half (that which looks like the white paper of a cigarette) is a battery pack; the back half (that which looks like the brown paper warpping the filter of a cigarette) is a plastic case that houses the vaporizer coil—they call it an "atomizer" so I will, too. The device is used by putting a drop of "juice" on the atomizer; when you replace the case and inhale on it, the atomizer boils the juice into a mist which you can inhale and blow out like smoke. The vapor definitely contains some nicotine: I've used the 11mg/ml and the 24mg/ml juices and find the latter to be adequate for maintaining desired nicotine levels. The devices are kinda cute, too: the tip glows red when you're inhaling, which draws stink-eye from time to time. A friend who has one enjoys "putting it out" in her palm or on her forehead when she's attracting undesired attention. The vapor's satisfyingly thick, too. I can blow smoke rings with it as well as I can with tobacco smoke.

The key is that there's no smoke, no tobacco, no incineration at all involved with the device's operation, which means it's not regulated by the smoking ban at all. It also means that it doesn't deal with the whole hyperventilation symptom of smoking withdrawal—that CO binds with hemoglobin more tightly than CO2 or O2, so that after it's been a while without a smoke, your body's cells are being delivered more O2 than they're intended to. That's kind of a good thing if you want to use one of these things as a smoking-cessation aid. No tar, too, eh?

A bottle of juice costs $10 at the website listed above. A friend who's replaced his cigarette usage with these tools estimates a bottle lasts two months, which is a silly discount compared to cartons. I'm recruiting friends to do some analysis on the compounds emitted from the atomizer under controlled conditions, but I can't report any adverse effects from the intermittent direct exposure I've had with it.

Update: The student newspaper wrote a story about some of my friends using these. I chose not to attend that night since I can't stand reporters (outside of sports and business news), the useless, ignorant self-important little wretches.

Summoning a little snark

2009-01-20T12:14:00.005-06:00

Here's my attempt:

So this is how liberty dies?

To a John Williams soundtrack...

As bad as that joke was, the movie from whence it derives is much worse.

Seriously, though, congratulations to Obama and his supporters, and to all Americans who have the finest form of government ever attempted, even if it's getting outragously big.

Another unrelated comment: didn't the bassist from Living Colour look a whole hell of a lot like Jerry Rice?

Chin up!

2009-01-14T16:48:00.004-06:00

Midnight tomorrow is the historical nadir of the winter in my neck of the woods—that's about where the annual warming-cooling cycle reaches its lowpoint. It's going to be spectacularly cold here: the high on Thursday is supposed to be one below, and Friday morning we're supposed to see temperatures lower than ten below. Admittedly, that's fairly cold, but realize that we can expect it to start trending warmer now, eh? That's something to look forward to. That and spring training.

And it appears that Illinois basketball will keep me well entertained until ST is well underway, so I'm in good shape for this very busy, final semester.

Simple Question

2009-01-09T12:25:00.001-06:00

Which outlier is more perverse: Milton Patterson or Corky Simpson?

Roster Suggestions

2008-12-19T20:29:00.006-06:00

John Mozeliak didn't ask my opinion, but I feel strangely compelled to give it anyway.

The top priority for the offseason is apparently picking up type-A LHRP Brian Fuentes to close for the Cardinals in 2009. Fuentes is a very good pitcher who can get both righties and lefties out. He's a three-time all-star. He'd also likely lose the closer role at some point during the season as he had in 2007 with Colorado. He'd prefer to pitch for the Angels, where I wouldn't be surprised to see Scot Shields take over as closer.

The poop on the street is that Fuentes wants something in the area of 3/$33M.

I don't want the Cardinals to sign Brian Fuentes. Too much money, too many years on the arm, too costly losing the first-round pick. I'm well aware that our bullpen last year had problems. We need another good lefthander: we've got Trever Miller on a very team-friendly contract. I'd like to see Dennys Reyes pitching for the Cardinals next year to solidify the left side of the 'pen. Reyes is a type-B FA who was offered arbitration, so the Twins will get a sandwich pick when he signs, but the team signing him won't lose anything. He wants a three-year deal, as does Fuentes, but Reyes is two years younger and is a (very good) LOOGY, not a closer, so the year-to-year cost wouldn't be terribly high. (I've had an eye on Reyes since the 2006 season, when the Ricardo Rincon era ended prematurely.

There aren't any established closers available on the FA market, unless you count Trevor Hoffman or Eric Gagne. It may sound a little hypocritical, seeing as he's also a type-A FA who was offered arbitration, but I could see good things coming from signing Juan Cruz to a three-year contract at setup man rates, something in the neighborhood of 3/$12M, maybe more given the crappy Farnsworth signing. The downside to that is that you lose your first-round pick in the '09 draft, of course, and also the ex-Cubs factor he brings. The upside is that he's developed into a very good strikeout pitcher, a plague on the houses of all left-handed hitters, and is three years younger than Fuentes. In fact, he's been one of the best relief pitchers in baseball over the past two years, striking out over 12 batters/9 over that span and putting up an ERA+ of 176 in 2009. That in spite of pitching half his games in the second most hitter-friendly stadium in the major leagues.

I suggest we sign Juan Cruz to a contract similar to the one we picked up Braden Looper on going into '06 with incentives for IP targets. Juan Cruz starts out 2008 closing until, ideally, Perez is clearly ready for the ninth inning. Then Cruz moves into a set-up role or takes Piñiero's spot in the rotation if Carpenter hasn't already. (I suppose it's a remote possibility that Jo-el could improve from last year, but I don't see it happening.) Cruz profiles pretty similarly to Wellemeyer—hard thrower, good minor-league history as a starter, struggles at the major league level due to walks that landed him in relief. If he could put up a 3.68 FIP as a starter in 2009 and 2010, he'd almost certainly be worth the first rounder. (That'd require him to maintain the 0.87 HR/9, drop his BB/9 to 3, and keep his K/9 from going below 8.)

Another reason I'd like the Cardinals to sign Juan Cruz is that I'd very much like Ben Sheets to be a Cardinals in 2009 without giving the Brewers an absolutely knock-out draft next summer. The market looks spooked by the flexor muscle tear near the elbow that Sheets endured late last season, but I'm a believer that Sheets' injury history is more flukiness than frailty. If the Cardinals sign both Cruz and Sheets, our first-round pick goes to Arizona and the Brewers get our second round pick for Sheets, since Cruz is ranked 16th among free agents by Elias, while Sheets comes in at 23. I've heard 2/$30M being bandied about for Sheets, with a lot of teams looking to cut payroll this off-season, I could see something even less. Over the next two years, Carp will be making 28.5 million, so that's about the limit that I expect the Cardinals would be willing to offer.

Pretty much sacrifice next year's draft (although you'll always find some talent that's unexpectedly dropped to the third round) and put together a great team without helping out the competition too much.

So here's how I'd like to see our roster work itself out for next year:

Rotation

Wagonmaker
Sheets
Wellemeyer
Lohse
Piñiero/Carpenter

Bullpen

Cruz RHRP (CL)
Perez RHRP
Motte RHRP
K-Mac RHRP
Franklin/Kinney/Wonderbrad RHRP
Reyes LHRP
Miller LHRP

Starting Lineup

C: Molina R
1B: El Hombre R
2B: Kennedy L
3B: Glaus R
SS: Spicoli R
LF: C-Dunc L
CF: Ankiel L
RF: Ludwick R

Bench

C: LaRue R
OF: Schumaker
OF: Barton/Mather/RazzleDazzle
IF: 2 of Brian Barden/Brenden Ryan/David Freese

Going off the most recent Roster Matrix at VeB, the payroll for that team would come in at around $111 million. They'd look like contenders on paper: if everything breaks right—healthy Carp and Sheets, resurgent Kennedy and Greene, solid bullpen, they'd be an excellent baseball team. With the Cubs planning on spending around $143M, we'd be fielding a comparably talented team without shooting ourselves in the foot for the future.

Go get 'em, Mo.

Update/Correction: This is what I get for trusting ESPN, I guess. According to USA Today's reporting on the Elias rankings, Ben Sheets scores a 79.038 on the FA list; Juan Cruz is lower at 76.627... The rankings are the same as reported on ESPN, sort of: Sheets is 23rd among NL pitchers and Cruz is 16th among NL relievers. I have to imagine that FA's are lumped together, though. If you sign a starter and a reliever, both type As, whichever one scores higher should be considered the bigger loss by the old team, not whichever one happens to be ranked higher within his positional category. Bummer. I was wrong. It would've been nice to dramatically improve our team without providing the Brewers with our first-rounder.

Shipfaced: I & II

2008-12-19T19:57:00.005-06:00

Nick Vatterott:

A Rare Specimen: The Effective Flowchart Joke

2008-12-19T19:34:00.001-06:00

Fridge Repair

2008-12-16T18:32:00.006-06:00

I bought a new refrigerator about two months ago when mine started making some scary noises. The old fridge didn't have good seals on the doors anyways, that had a tendency to attract mildew which I'd have to clean up every once in a while with ~~my roommate's~~ an old toothbrush and some diluted bleach.

The new one's a beast, a monstrous side-by-side model with an ice and water dispenser in the freezer door, something I'd never had in a fridge at my own house before. I got it for a good price from the used appliance store in town. The thing works great, except when I got it, the water dispenser wasn't working because the nipple that extends the door's plumbing wasn't there, so pressing the lever would result in a disorganized mess of water coming out and running down the back of the dispenser housing.

I'd seen these sorts of fridges many times in the past and was always a little fascinated by them. The first one I saw many moons ago, I remember noting that the water dispenser nozzle looked a lot like the 1/4" plastic water line that you use to connect the fridge water supply to a house line. I had a hard time figuring out exactly how the whole system comes together at the end there. I know there's a valve in the back of the fridge that regulates flow to the ice maker and to a reservoir behind the meat drawer that maintains a supply of cold water under line pressure. From there water flows up through the hinge of the door with the dispenser then down to the valve system, then down through the dispenser outflow nozzle.

It's the last part that I was missing. I couldn't figure out how it could have disappeared from the unit or how it was intended to be attached to the open side of the valve. Seeing as that's the only thing not working on the beast, I assume that's the reason the previous owner sold it and that the repair shop just hadn't noticed.

So the first thing I did was jam a length of 1/4" plastic water line up there, snip it off to about the right height, and opened the valve to see how it'd dispense.

There was good flow through the replacement hose, but water leaked around the hose, draining down the back of the dispenser housing and into the spill basin in there. For a while, I left it like that, wondering exactly how the seal was meant to be made at the valve—and sopping up the basin every few days with paper towels... I'd found exploded views of the valve assembly but can't tell how the water lines are supposed to connect to the valve, whether they're meant to be epoxied in or if they use more conventional and do-it-yourself friendly means of making the apparatus watertight.

I tried the conventional method first: after finding some #5 o-rings at Lowe's that have a 1/4" internal diameter, I yanked my home-made nozzle out, slipped one of the wee o-rings on the upper end, and jammed it back up into the valve assembly. My concern was that this would cause a portion of the water flow to leak inside the freezer door or into the freezer itself, both of which would be Bad Things. It stopped the dripping inside the dispenser housing and I haven't seen any evidence that water's leaking anywhere—in the door, into the freezer, onto the ground, nothing...

That's a good thing to know. It means if you have one of these fridges and your water dispenser nozzle looks grungy (being the only part of the system routinely exposed to air), you can rip that part of the line out and replace it with less than a dollar's worth of parts. Or I suppose if you have some large water bottle that you wish you could fill up before work every morning but is too big to fit in the dispenser housing, you could replace the nozzle with a piece of 1/4" tubing long enough to reach somewhere convenient for filling it.

True, it's not nearly as cool as this boozerator, of course. Especially impressive is how he wired the pump into the water supply solenoid on the inlet valve. I guess I just figured that the water dispenser system was always under line pressure, that the flow from the house supply is regulated only by the valve in the door and that the inlet valve only switched the icemaker supply. I must be wrong about that. I wonder where the advantage of doing it that way is, since it clearly gives you more failure points.

Hot News of the Day

2008-12-16T09:55:00.000-06:00

Pardon my French

2008-12-12T12:17:00.002-06:00

Killed, though, for now by the UAW.

The deal-breaking concessions sounded reasonable to me.

Oh Glorious Day

2008-12-11T15:50:00.005-06:00

Every year I look forward to a MLB team doing something horror-show awful in the offseason just for this sort of post from Dan Szymborski.

Dayton Moore's a smart guy who'd been laying a pretty sound foundation in KC—it boggles the mind that he'd pick up a heroically incompetent pitcher like Horacio Ramirez on a guaranteed $1.8M contract.

If you missed it, last year it was the Cardinals who justifiably drew Dan's ire in this post, which is, no kidding, the first page returned when googling '"Dan Szymborski" brilliant hilarious'.

Hot Stove BS

2008-12-09T17:31:00.007-06:00

Joel Sherman, the writer who first broke the Khalil Greene trade, posted this morning that the Cardinals are surprised by the level of interest in Rick Ankiel out on the trade market. They shouldn't be: Ank had some amazing defensive highlights (the Rockies game will stay with me forever) and has been cranking longballs at a sick clip for almost two seasons. Add in that he'll be a Scott Boras FA after next season and he's an attractive one-year option who shouldn't cost the receiving team much in talent. Sherman suggests Ian Kennedy from the Yankees.

Ian Kennedy is a 6'-ish RHSP drafted (14th round) by the Cardinals out of La Quinta high school in California in 2003. He opted for college and put up stellar numbers at USC before entering the draft again after his Junior year, when he was picked in the first round by the Yankees. In 2007, his first full season of pro ball, he dominated three levels and received a September call-up which saw him successfully start three games.

Last year's woes are pretty well known. He pitched poorly for the Yankees and was sent down to AAA, where he pitched great again. He's throwing great in the Puerto Rican winter league now. (Two starts ago, he pitched a complete game 3-hitter while striking out 7 batters, for example.)

He's a good pitcher and could be a very good one.

Since I don't watch any SportsCenter or Baseball Tonight, I don't follow the Yankees at all, but judging by Humberto Sanchez' awful performance pitching in relief during the AFL, I imagine he's looked at as a pretty big risk going into next season. He was the main piece of the three players coming back to the Yankees in the Gary Sheffield trade and underwent Tommy John surgery right away. He came back last season and got a September call-up, in which he pitched two effective innings for the Yankees. In the second outing (Top of the 8th), he was hitting 94 on his fastball pretty consistently and showed a strong curveball.

I'd be pleased with a trade that brought one of those two pitchers, plus a lesser minor-league reliever, for Ankiel. I'd expect that the secondary talent in the Humberto trade would be better given injury history and track record—and I'd judge the upside in that trade as better as well, so that'd be the preferred option if either is.

Ankiel would be great for the Yankees. As I read this their stadium is the second friendliest for LH pull-hitters in the league [ed--What new stadium?!?], after the circus ring in Houston something mimicking baseball is played in.

Spicoli

2008-12-04T23:09:00.007-06:00

I'm thrilled with this trade. If you haven't heard, my beloved Cardinals traded Mark Worrell and a PTBNL to the Padres for Khalil Greene, who looks exactly like Sean Penn in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. (Greene (w/ brand-spankin' new photoshop job)| Spicoli. QEMFD.) I'm already thinking up Mr. Hand jokes to lay down all freakin' season.

Greene has a reputation as an excellent defensive shortstop (although PMR, a defensive statistic that I find useful, didn't like him in 2008 or 2007, to a lesser extent. I haven't seen him play all that much, but I've liked him when the Cards play the Padres. He's also got some sock in his bat—he hit 27 HR in 2007 while half his games in the league's most HR-depressing stadium. Away from Petco, his career batting splits are .270/.318/.484, pretty damned good—although Busch III does suppress right handed batters to an extent. Last year was a very down year offensively for Greene and he still hit 10 balls out. The Cardinals haven't had a double digit year for HR from the shortstop position since Renteria. He's not as balanced of a hitter as Renteria was in his prime in the Lou, but he can hit the ball out like him.

I'm looking forward to seeing him gun to Pujols next year. If he can improve his walk rate a little bit, I think we'll be greatly improved. Greene was the shortstop I thought would have fit us best: Furcal won't be worth the contract he'll eventually sign and Renteria's career trajectory doesn't look promising. I'm looking forward to seeing, at some point, a Khalil Greene-Tyler Greene double play turned next year.

(Temper that enthusiasm with a little Fungo, perhaps.)

To get Greene, we gave up Mark Worrell. Worrell's a good pitcher with a funky delivery. He's put up excellent peripherals throughout his minor league career. Added to the 40-man roster before the winter meetings last year, he made a few appearances for the Cardinals this year and didn't have as much success as I expected he would—and I'm sure he expected better, too. Before last season, I thought he would have been a better pitcher for us than Ryan Franklin. That may have been a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much. He'll do well for the Padres—they got a solid, major league-ready right-handed relief specialist. The Cardinals dealt a low chip from one of the few too-tall stacks of talent we have on the table. (The other being outfielders.) It would appear that Mark's happy he's part of this deal.

The PTBNL will be picked off a list of three players—two of them pitchers—some time around Spring Training. Players put on those lists are usually non-prospects—organizational filler types. Or Chris Lambert. As long as it's not one of my favorite unheralded minor-leaguers (like Jameson Maj or Brian Broderick), I imagine this won't be a big deal for anyone but that player and his family.

In unrelated news: there were 7,394,345 words written in game recaps by MLB.com beat writers over the past two seasons. The most common word, of course, is the, which occurred 467,078 times. Banana was written 10 times: six times in the plural, thrice in the singular, and once as banana-fueled. Pujols was written 1155 times. The most frequent personal name, aside from ambiguous terms like will, young, fielder, etc., was Ryan. The most frequent last name was Ramirez. The most common team name (aside from Sox, which refers to two teams) was the Cubs, at 4,177 uses. Going through the descending token frequency list, I had a... let's call it a guffaw... when I noticed that wrong and hole occurred next to each other in frequency at 948 and 947 uses, respectively. Nobody ever mentioned Delino DeShields over the past two years. Stan Musial was referred to 13 times; Rogers Hornsby twice. Pickle was used ten times, versus 182 uses of rundown.

Cool

2008-12-04T21:56:00.000-06:00

I.L.L.

2008-12-02T20:31:00.004-06:00

Even though the Illini eventually fell, 76-74, that was one hell of a basketball game. Mike Davis was on fire—it's a shame a big potential breakout game like that couldn't have ended with some celebration in front of the home crowd. He was certainly impressive, as was the much-maligned (unfairly) Chester Frazier, who's been the best defender for the Illini the past two years, maybe even three.

McCamey's got some things to learn before he'll be able to truly grow into his talent, but he had a good game, too.

In limited minutes, I was surprised by how well JuCo transfer Dominique Keller played. He's a solid rebounder and had better ball-handling skill than I'd expected. He should do well in the system once conference play starts, looking forward to seeing him get accustomed to this level of play.

Mark Tupper, the finest Illini columnist around in my humble opinion, had this to say going into tonight's game:

It’s surely a clash of styles. Clemson likes to push the pace, press and shoot, and the Tigers are averaging more than 81 points a game. Illinois, on the other hand, clamps down defensively and is limiting its opponents to 56.2 points per game. Something’s gotta give.

We came pretty close to keeping up with them offensively. A couple turnovers fewer and it might've been the Illini's game.

(Paul Klee, the N-G beat writer, liveblogged the game, including more than a few details one would miss on the boob tube.

Also, had a great time watching Wisconsin pull one out by the skin of their teeth last night (Illini had just about the exact same opportunity); watching tOSU take down Miami; and seeing Iowa take BC down to the wire—their game was two free throws by a Freshman away from being a big upset. The Big Ten is playing the ACC closely, here's hoping the rest of the conference can finally beat them in this goofy challenge in spite of Illinois' failure to contribute to that particular goal.

Now let's get Georgia on Tuesday to get a nice 4-game wins streak going heading into Braggin' Rights.

Report from Abroad

2008-11-30T23:03:00.003-06:00

My old pal Nick's been on a cruise ship for the past six months, providing comedy to the passengers with a group from Second City.

He recently talked the owner of a comedy club in Istanbul to let him get up on stage for some stand-up. The story is told brilliantly here.

Appetizer Course

2008-11-27T15:52:00.013-06:00

Today's my 31st birthday and Thanksgiving, and for the first time I'm spending the holiday away from family. I'm using recipes for just about everything I'm cooking today since I've never made most of these things. I'll improvise next time. Here are some unflattering pictures of the appetizers, which are tasty, trust me.

Roasted Red Peppers

Stuffed 'Chokes

Unfortunately, my oven died yesterday, so I'll have to travel to roast the turkey later on. (No kidding, the board that controls the electronics in the display died last night while I was broiling the peppers.) For the turkey, I'm following Alton Brown's Romancing the Bird procedure, as is just about everyone else in town, judging by the total sellout of vegetable stock at the grocery store.

Added later: Was too hungry to snap some pictures once I put the spread together, but dinner was a success, in spite of having no oven in the house to roast a turkey in.

The only recipe I followed for the main course, aside from the turkey, was this mushroom recipe, and it's definitely a keeper.

SFII Turbo Re-Release

2008-11-20T18:12:00.002-06:00

I love that they used the music from Karate Kid in the trailer for Street Fighter II Turbo HD, a re-release of perhaps the best fighting game every made. I liked Champion edition, myself, where you could play with the bosses but before they tried to enhance all the characters to even the playing field. My friend Jess and I were absolute bad-asses at the game. We could still have a legendary Ken vs. Ryu battle today if we felt like it. But to be truly great at the game, you had to be able to kick the snot out of people with the weaker characters. Jess was better than I was—he could ride a machine for hours, easily beating up any takers while using difficult characters like Zangief (the bear wrestler from Russia) or E. Honda (the sumo wrestler from Japan).

2008-11-18T21:39:00.000-06:00

Laughable. Contemptible.

Congratulations

2008-11-12T15:35:00.005-06:00

In her first year as head coach of the field hockey team at Sewanee (University of the South), my cousin's wife, Coach Baldaccini, led her team to a conference championship, their best overall record since the 1998 season, and a berth in the D-III NCAA tournament.

Way to hit the ground running, Jen.

(And apparently my cousin is their assistant coach, too. Give him some credit for no doubt running the women through football drills.)

They're playing Lynchburg as I type this (Bracket) for the right to take on Ursinus in the second round. There's free streaming video of the games at that link. Single camera—no graphics—with a play-by-play voiceover.

Later that night: Dammit. Lost 4-0. Still an outstanding first season.

Fare Thee Well, Old Friend

2008-11-11T16:50:00.002-06:00

A close friend of my family, Jim Hallman, died on Saturday at the age of 74. I'd known him since I knew anyone, from when my family moved from New Jersey to Columbus, Ohio in 1980 or so, and always knew him as a joyous, very funny man—one of the few people I've known who I'd consider applying the description "jolly," although his sense of humor welcomely ran a little crass for that term. My earliest memories of him are the new jokes he'd always have to tell. He was a handy gentleman, as well, and worked as an apartment maintenance man long after he retired—I suppose just because he figured there was work there for him to do. Idle hands and all. His wife is my mom's best friend.

I got to see him over the summer. He was looking hale and hearty and was out to visit one of his children in St. Louis. I was in town to work on my mom's house to get it ready to sell. He was impressed with my drywall repair skills that'd improved quite a bit since I was in high school. Back then, I remember him commenting wryly, "Hell, most guys your age wouldn't've even tried to fix it!" He meant it and I took it as a genuine compliment, although we both silently acknowledged that the patch under discussion looked like garbage. He was a genuinely decent man. While visiting, he got up on a chair to replace a ceiling fan. That weekend, he took my sister, my mother, a friend of mine, and me out to dinner along with his own very large family and we all had a good time. I had no idea he was in any way sick. Had no idea that would be the last time I'd ever see him. I think he wanted it that way, and that's all right with me. I'll always remember him as I always knew him.

I'm going to try to make it to Columbus for his memorial this weekend. It's very hard for me to know what to say to people when they're dealing with an enormous loss like this, although I've found this short essay, What to Say and Not to Say to the Grieving, by Donald Sensing helpful in the past. (DS's essays have become hard to find as he's changed websites, but the listing is there in plain sight here.)

Three-Critter Chili with Barley

2008-11-09T18:57:00.007-06:00

Here's the quasi-recipe for the chili I improvised today from things that looked good at the store:

Halved this big ol' sweet yellow onion, minced one half and sliced the other. Cooked the onion down in a little olive oil with salt and pepper. Poured two cans of Beef stock into the slow-cooker and set it on high.

While softening the onions, I started trimming fat and connective tissue from a couple of pork steaks. The noble pig is the first animal whose muscles are in my chili. After trimming the pork steaks, I cubed them and rolled them around on a plate of flour seasoned with some black pepper, white pepper, salt, and some hot mexican chili powder.

Here are the other meats that are going into the chili, along with the aforementioned plate of seasoned flour. On the left is a london broil, about 1.5 pounds of lean cow round. In the middle is a pound of ground lamb. At the top left is the flour I use: Mochiko Sweet Rice Flour. Since I don't bake, I only use flour to coat meat for browning or frying. Here's a handy tip: I also put a fork in for every three eggs when making scrambled eggs. Makes them fluffy and outstanding.

Here I am finishing up the trimming work on the pork steaks while some olive oil heats up in the skillet.

GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN!

While the cubed pork steaks, coated in seasoned flour, brown in the oil, I start cubing up the beef. Here I hint at my technique for cutting down the meat. I cut it into thirds, then butterflied each piece as shown. Fold it back over, slice it crossways, then finish off the cubes. These guys rolled around in the flour as well, then jumped into the skillet with some hot olive oil for a sear once the pork cubes vacated the real estate.

Those pork cubes looked like this once I was done browning them. The pork and beef go into the slow cooker. The ground lamb goes straight into the dry, hot skillet to be browned and crumbled. I had to drain it twice during cooking. If you're not a fan of the way sheep taste, you may try using uncased sausage or ground veal (thus reducing the number of critters in the chili by one) or ground turkey (which won't be as tender).

After all the cooked meat was in, I threw in around a cup and a half of dry barley. In go the canned tomatoes. I used halved, stewed tomatoes; tomato paste (saving some to spread on crackers as a snack with some parmesan cheese); and two smaller cans of diced tomatoes with jalapenos and habaneros. I didn't drain any of the cans; the barley would need the moisture to rehydrate and the liquid in the cans is basically tomato stock.

Also added a large can of black beans. This one I drained.

Real tasty chili. Fake smile. Just stirring it around.

Blistering the skin on a jalapeño. After it blackened, I sliced it up and de-ribbed and de-seeded it, then stirred it in. Added seasoning: salt, white and black pepper, chili powder, cumin, a few shakes of red pepper flakes, some minced garlic, and four bay leaves.

Here's the chili. It's gonna cook down on low for another four hours. Around 11 tonight, I'll take a break from writing diligently to pour myself a bowl and snap some pictures.

Interim

2008-11-09T14:58:00.003-06:00

The election season is over and I probably won't have time to study up on current baseball stuff until closer to the winter meetings. (Although my research requires me to build an extremely thorough database of the last two seasons' MLB activities. I swear, it's for science.) That gives me about a month where I don't expect to write anything political or baseball related, barring a trade or unpredictable national crisis.

To conjure up low-effort content, I propose an online chili cookoff. Here're the rules (calvin-ball style):

Write up a post, including pictures, of your chili cooking process.
Include at the end a couple of fake reviews of how awesome your chili is.
If anyone else picks up the game, write up fake reviews comparing their chili unfavorably to yours.

It'll give me at least one post that shouldn't offend anyone. Everybody likes cooking tips.

The Metropolitan Fire

2008-11-07T17:51:00.002-06:00

A beautiful 19th century building in downtown Champaign, which was nearing the end of extensive renovations, burned to the ground last night.

Dramatic pictures here.

What a sin. Seeing as the gas and electric is turned off to the building, sounds suspicious. If it's arson, I hope they find the scumbag who started it.

Garbage

2008-11-05T16:23:00.002-06:00

I'd like to take this time to point out that Realplayer 11 is a piece of garbage, shitware of the worst sort. The Mac version is almost completely non-functional; the Windows version isn't much better.

And Realnetworks makes it hard to find the older versions, the bastards. If you need to use RealPlayer for any reason, I highly recommend you downgrade to version 10, available here for Windows and here for Macs. I very rarely watch movies on my linux machines, but would guess that compiling an MPlayer would be a better way to go. The last version of Realplayer for linux wasn't too impressive.

Myco-diesel

2008-11-04T12:39:00.001-06:00

This gentleman Gary Strobel and his students are doing exciting work. See here.

I Voted

2008-11-04T10:31:00.012-06:00

Turnout in my precinct looks to be huge. My neighborhood's what I suppose you'd call black, middle-class. Most of the housing is in single-family residences, most of them are owner-occupied. To turn a Dave Chappelle joke on its head: I am the white neighborhood in it, although my next door neighbors are from Mexico and the family three houses down are from Vietnam (the parents, at least).

Our precinct used to use butterfly punch-card ballots, but since the 2006 election, we use paper ballots that are read and counted optically. After filling out the ballot, you stick it into the machine and if there are no problems reading it, the ballot drops into a bin and the number on the display increments by one. I was the 299th voter today and the house was packed when I was there. Voting in the primaries, I was the 17th, although I was an hour earlier to the polls then. Only 338 citizens voted in my precinct in that election—you can see me there as the lone voter for Fred, who had already dropped out of the race.

The woman behind me in line to get a ballot today was a first-time voter in her upper twenties and the two women in the two booths to my right probably were on the lower end of the 18-24 demographic, judging by their voices and the content of their conversation carried on through the canvas walls of the booths: "Who should I vote for? I don't know any of these people!" I assume they were at the part about keeping judges, which is a pretty hard call for a lot of people, I suppose. I seach the internet for the judges' names before the election to make sure none of them are loonies or legal incompetents—if no evidence exists that they are, I vote them back on. I enthusiastically voted to retain Judge Tom DiFanis on the strength of this story, preserved at Illinipundit and copy-pasted here:

Some people showing up for jury duty at the Champaign County Courthouse in Urbana this morning were sent home, not because there were no trials for them to hear but because construction had displaced them.

"We've got no place to put these jurors," an irritated Presiding Judge Tom Difanis said this morning. "What am I going to do with them? Have them stand in the construction area?"

Tuckpointing on the old courthouse began last week in advance of the renovation of the courthouse bell tower. The work means that the jury assembly room, on the first floor of the old courthouse at the west end of the courthouse complex, will be out of commission for several months.

"They (county administrators) had their timetable, and we just merely suggested that they make a place for us to put our jurors and they haven't," Difanis said this morning. "I've been with Champaign County going on 36 years. It really doesn't surprise me we're this inept."

The man's in touch with the voters.

It doesn't matter much who I voted for. Unless a deplorable fraud happens, the electoral collegian representing me here in Illinois will be voting for Barack Obama. Dick Durbin will win re-election in a landslide. I'll be interested to see how local offices turn out. I imagine that a great many first-time Obama voters will vote straight-party tickets for the Democratic Party candidates. Some may choose not to vote for those offices.

So, to sum up, turnout in my precinct looks excellent—it was pleasing to see evidence of new voters taking up their responsibility to elect our government. Returns will be posted by Mark Sheldon here as they come in tonight. Here's hoping my like-minded brethren in the battleground states get out and vote in droves. Otherwise, here's some sincere hoping that I'm wrong about Obama and Colin Powell, Boxcar, and almost all of my friends are right about him. Not that any of us know anything about him except what he and his aides have told us.

Here's an interesting essay for you. Naturally, I greatly admire Nate Silver's work on baseball. We'll see in a short while how good his political analysis is. It's a long essay—here's an excerpt to give you enough of a taste to tell you whether it'll pique your interest:

Lying to pollsters is frequent and a necessity in Pennslyvania due to the unions. Many union bosses will call their members, posing as a 'pollster', and if the member gives the wrong asnwer, a thug is sent to the house. The Teacher's Union there has sent strict orders to vote for Obama "or else".

I don't find that in the least bit hard to believe. We could be in for a ride, believe it or not. (Hat tip to Jim Treacher for the pointer. (Do we still tip hats?))

Delightful

2008-11-04T07:42:00.004-06:00

Every Fall, there comes the season defensive statistics and a headline that Derek Jeter is, in fact, a terrible gloveman at Short.

Followed, a few minutes later, with a startled response like comment #14 on the article.

World of Goo

2008-10-29T11:31:00.005-05:00

Over the weekend, I used my Wii's encrypted wireless connection to my home network to download a bunch of old school games {Y's Book I & II; Mega Man 2; Metroid) for the Virtual Console and also one new-school game that had been rated highly for the WiiWare doo-hickey.

And what an excellent game it is: World of Goo, by the two-man development team at 2D Boy. It's a physics-based game, something like Fantastic Contraption, except where all the building blocks are gooballs of varying structural properties used to create structures needed to solve tasks. (So far, none of the gooballs have any kinetic powers aside from undulating like the wheels in FC.) The motion-sensitive controls with the Wiimote work admirably well. The music's excellent and the quirky visuals definitely grow on you. Reminds me quite a bit of a Tim Burton cartoon.

Some of the puzzles are pretty tough to figure out. I'm stuck on one at the moment that's challenging enough to take around with you. Kindly, the game lets you skip puzzles so you don't get too frustrated.

Great game, for fifteen bucks, I couldn't recommend it more highly.

Good Material

2008-10-17T12:13:00.005-05:00

Who wrote his material, Jim Downey?

Later: This is pretty good material, too.

And this is downright terrifying. We could have the worst of the Johnson/Nixon era policies for the next two years. (At least. If the district were to get two Senators, it could be the rest of my life.)

Last Chance

2008-10-15T19:32:00.052-05:00

Viewership will be down for tonight's debate, no doubt, but the number of Americans still seeking a candidate to best represent their priorities has dwindled down to some 7-8% of registered voters, if the polls are to be believed.

~~Media hype~~ Expectations are that McCain will come out fighting "dirty", he'll continue to point out Obama's long-standing, formative relationships with certain fools and blowhards who've dedicated their lives to subverting American interests like Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko (but not Wright, Khalidi, or Odinga 'cuz that'd be divisive.)

I imagine he'll mention Ayers as an aside—Obama may or may not take the bait. Something I've noticed about Obama is that he refuses to admit when he's wrong—to this day, he attempts to justify his primary debate gaffe of committing to president-level talks with Iran's (puppet) head of (mis-)government. In the first debate, he appealed to authority by claiming Henry Kissinger agrees with him—the logical fallacy backfired when Kissinger called BS. In this case, Obama isn't wrong so much as he's backed into a corner by telling contradictory stories about his relationship with Ayers.

That'd be a waste of time for McCain, though. He needs to defend his fiscal plans and his healthcare plan, both of which I think are good ideas. He does need to go on the attack though, particularly against Obama's "95% of Americans get a tax cut" BS. He should quit working to distance himself from Bush and should instead distance Obama from Clinton and those happy days of a good economy and a friendly press. Obama's tax plan essentially undoes all the (highly successful) welfare reform of the Clinton era by directly redistributing wealth via the IRS. If he doesn't point out that somewhere around 40% of Americans don't pay any Federal Income Tax, he will have failed, in my opinion.

I'd also like to see McCain give a quick, correct answer to a simple question and stop talking. That's extremely unlikely.

8:09 -- What the hell. I'll crack a beer and liveblog this. Obama's talking about the 95% tax cut thing. Jump on it, McCain.

8:11 -- So far, he's said that business owners should spread the wealth around instead of the government. Good, but not the swing he needs to take. Obama comes back with the 95% claim again and starts class-warfaring.

8:13 -- Interesting ~~obfuscation~~ lexical choices just used and that I've noticed over the two-year campaign: Obama calls tax 'n spend policy "investment"; McCain's taken to calling the corporate income tax, "business tax".

8:15 -- Obama wants to go through the Federal Budget line-by-line and cut expenses to pay for his policy of a unicorn for every man, woman, and child. Unfortunately, or rather fortunately for balance of power reasons, congress didn't pass the line-item veto bill back in the George H.W. Bush administration.

8:17 -- McCain's memorized sequence of "all of the above" energy sources is stale, man. He should be talking about electrical grid improvements by now.

8:18 -- McCain suddenly wants a line-item veto, too. I'd much, much prefer genuine transparency in appropriations and legislation.

8:20 -- McCain's distancing himself from Bush. He doesn't listen to me. Obama's complaint was that Bush allowed the deficit to explode. I'll be at the front of the line to ridicule Bush for failing to veto the ridiculous spending bills that he signed into law, but it's not like his 8 years in office were normal 8 years. There was a lot of expensive work that had to be done oversees over those years and as we've learned lately, congress doesn't do anything unless they're bribed to do it.

8:23 -- Unruly audience tonight. These kids have no self-control... Not the Hofstra students, but the press.

8:25 -- McCain shouldn't waste his time with distancing himself from Bush anymore. Nobody who's still ready to be swayed is going to buy that argument at this point.

8:25 -- Schieffer claims the campaigns are nasty, listing a series of terms the Obama campaign has thrown at McCain—leaving out the 'dishonorable' one that I find offensive. Schieffer wants McCain to tell Obama to his face that he's friends of Bill Ayers. McCain took the opportunity to play the victim.

8:27 -- I'm pretty disappointed McCain didn't go after Obama's tax plan, which would've been effective. Somebody in his campaign must know what a refundable tax credit is, since it's the key of his healthcare plan.

8:28 -- Obama claims 100% of McCain's advertisements were negative. Law professors can't do math.

8:30 -- McCain throws much of Texas under the bus for a few Arizona voters. Points out the nation-wide negative attack ads. Obama's running attack ads in freakin' Illinois, man. We expect Obama to spend our money wisely?

8:32 -- Obama's playing to the NYT hype about McCain's rallies gone wild and the twisted claims that McCain supporters want Obama to be killed. He complains that Americans have become too cynical about our politics. I'd prefer more cynicism. The Obamessiah fans who worship at this typical politician's feet give me fear for the future of this nation. Of course, if he wins, they'll be disillusioned out of politics until their thirties—when they're decent taxpaying Joe twelve-packs. (Stolen bit)

8:35 -- McCain just said, "Mr. Ayers... I don't care about an old washed up terrorists." Goes on about ACORN. Heh. Obama's snickering into his notebook. Crazy old man, he thinks. And how about that, he took the bait. Now the press has to cover it.

8:37 -- Obama thinks the Chicago Tribune is a Republican-leaning newspaper. And my butt can chew gum. At least that gives an indication of where he situates himself on the political spectrum.

8:39 -- I think the point's made, McCain. Obama's lied about ten times in a row about some stuff that a lot of people may or may not care about. You got more important stuff to do. During his transition back to those issues, Obama snickers audibly. Guffaws perhaps.

8:41 -- Joe Biden has never forgotten where he comes from. And Biden's foreign policy chops are vastly overstated. He's been wrong more often than not.

8:42 -- A lot of people are going to flip out about McCain calling Palin a "role model for women." I like her a great deal. She's a talented politician and, as far as I can tell, a libertarian pragmatist with some strong socially conservative views that I imagine she'd only promote on a bully-pulpit basis if she becomes president someday. That's what she's been as governor of Alaska.

8:45 -- McCain and I agree on something! Biden's wrong more often than not on foreign policy issues.

8:47 -- Energy policy, nice! Question: give me a number for how much we can reduce our foreign oil dependency. Yeah, right. McCain wants to quit buying oil from enemy states, does the alloftheabove sequence, wants to shift to nukes. Just say electric cars and trucks, man! The goal here is to get stuff into the press. People would like the idea of shifting some of the short-range trucking fleet into electric vehicles drawing from a nuke powered grid.

8:49 -- It should be noted that Obama's "use-em-or-lose-em" policy was swiped from the detested Sarah Palin... Then calls for the age-old increased energy efficiency mandates. Diversification, man. Gotta start there. Obama's on his heels about free trade here. If McCain says, "Colombia," I'll be pleased.

8:51 -- Cretins are going to call McCain racist for calling attention to Obama's "eloquence." If he would've said "nuance" it would have struck a more resonant chord. Code for BS, for foreign readers who came here instead of Obama's $200 or less donations page.

8:53 -- McCain said Colombia. I am pleased. Wiggle, Obama. Wiggle. He's unknowingly defending FARC at this time. Or knowingly??? Obama remembered Detroit, wants to subsidize the car manufacturers into the Gore-Kerry fuel efficiency mandates. They should be making awesome cars. And electric cars. And we should be prepping the grid for them.

8:55 -- McCain turned Colombia pretty deftly, in my eyes, on Obama. Obama saw Ahmedinijad coming and started snickering again. Still is. I don't know what he thinks is going on in the region around Colombia. I hope he doesn't.

8:58 -- I hate these faux-Reagan anecdotes about regular Joe Winebottles. I did like McCain's first one about Joe Wurzelbacher, because the dude's great. Reminds me of a lot of the very smart people I knew in my previous life. Hey, there's McCain talking up Joe again. How come McCain seems to be reading this everytime except when he needs to talk about cash tax rebates to non-taxpayers?

9:02 -- I certainly hope that Obama and the democratic congress celebrate the dethroning of King George for the next two years instead of passing Obama's healthcare plan. If he wins, of course, and McCain hasn't landed the heavy body blows he needs to.

9:03 -- McCain's got his own 95% claim here. Talking about the interstate health insurance market. Obama will take the bait; will McCain have the counterargument this time? Being a good free marketeer in this answer. Good answer all around. Good to bring up the prospect of an all-Democrat DC. With apologies to the heroic Admiral Stockdale, Americans like gridlock. I know I do. [--"Coming to America" reference] (Obama didn't take the bait.)

9:08 -- Oops. McCain just said that he would impose a litmus test. Sorta. It was a good one. Sorta. Obama's judges will be scary. Anti-2nd-amendment, internationalist, anti-constitutionist, poor judges. [Added later: McCain didn't really have a litmus test there, what he did was say that he wouldn't nominate a judge who openly championed Roe v. Wade. He basically said that would disqualify them as prudent judges who'd seriously interpret the constitution. That's a perfectly sound position since judge's shouldn't weigh in on decisions beyond their scope or jurisdiction.

Obama supporter and Wisconsin lawprof Ann Althouse liked McCain in that round:
9:07: The Supreme Court. McCain notes his record of voting for judicial nominees based on their qualifications. This is a good point, because Obama has voted against highly qualified Supreme Court nominees, while McCain voted for Justice Ginsburg. They're both against "litmus tests" (of course).

9:11 -- For a second, I thought McCain's would make the libertarian conservative policy position on abortion. Essentially, the same as Clinton's: safe, legal, rare—with the addition of socially discouraged. He didn't though, went after Obama for his vote of present on the Illinois legislature Born-Alive bill.

9:15 -- "Eloquence," again. "Nuance," McCain!

9:15 -- Education question, and I liked the question, essentially, "We pay the most per capita, get the worst results. Why? How to fix it?"

9:17 -- I'm not a fan of Obama's tuition for community service plan, nor his plan for a public activist institution that rivals the military in size and funding. Work-study is good, tuition rates need to go down, public school funding should be increased. I don't know how to do it, but I'd start by cutting just about every department that ends in "studies" and merge them with other related departments. (Or merge them into a super-department called General Grievance Studies or call it a No-Rigor-Needed-Major.)

9:21 -- John McCain and I are huge fans of vouchers. Obama doesn't like them. Seems to think they can't be paid for. Doesn't know how they work or wants to obfuscate.

9:24 -- I'm one of the few fans of NCLB. The plan was to test the schools and teachers, not the students. Schools adapted to save their skins and trash their students. Still a good idea. McCain calls it an important first step, I agree.

9:25 -- Ub dub dub duhh dub uhh dub, aaaaaand, dub uh dub. Who uh who uh dub uh.

9:26 -- Obama appeals to data. Looking forward to seeing the "Fact Checkers" skew this one tomorrow.

9:27 -- Final statements. McCain goes first: new direction. I'm a reformer, I take on these thieving bastards in DC. Careful steward of your tax dollars. Health care plug. He would've won this debate, hands-down, if he could articulate what a refundable tax credit is. Why can't he, by gum? Honored and humbled if given the opportunity to serve again.

9:29 -- Obama up. Blames "the policy of the last 8 years" for the economic crisis. I won't bet any money that the fact-checkers clarify that steaming loaf. Brighter days are ahead. Goverment needs to "invest" in America. Policies that'll lift wages (he means minimum wage hikes, not corporate tax cuts, no doubt). I'll work every single day, tirelessly on your behalf.

9:32 -- Wrap up. Both candidates did better than in the previous debates. I guess they just needed to sit down. McCain missed a fat hanging curve that's been sitting in his wheelhouse for the past two weeks. Obama pretended to be a moderate, showing a little of his leftism from time to time. (Although not as bad as in the last debate: nobody's mentioned his talk about corporate tax cuts being money "out of the system" in that debate, a revealing perspective, I thought.) Both candidates presented a good front; McCain's politics appeal to me a great deal more—if only he could better articulate the details of these competing tax and healthcare plans.

10:10 -- Time for a few brews and a little karaoke. Think I'm in the mood to warble out some Gordon Lightfoot.

Country First

2008-10-14T12:00:00.003-05:00

From Rick Moran (no relation) on the possible Obama presidency:

What it means is that where what he proposes to do is reasonable and doesn't conflict with our principles, he should expect our support. It means that we don't have to delegitimize his presidency to oppose him either. People of good will and good conscience can disagree without tearing each other and the country apart.

Behaving like an adult is, of course, the right thing to do. And it's good politics, besides.

(Judging from the comments, though...)

Next Treasury Secretary

2008-10-10T08:40:00.005-05:00

In the Townhall debate, both candidates were asked who they would pick as their Secretary of Treasury—who for the next year or so will be the most powerful government agent in the domestic areas. Neither candidate committed to anyone, wisely; but it was the first I'd heard that Paulson didn't want to stay on, which gives one pause to how strongly he believes in the new powers awarded to him.

If I had my druthers, I'd want someone with a deep knowledge of the housing sector, extremely well-respected business smarts, and a libertarian bent. I'd pick Dick Kovacevich, former CEO and current Chairman of Wells Fargo. (Interviews here and here; Bio here; here called, "The best banker you've never heard of.") He's long advocated fully privatizing Fannie and Freddie, something that's likely to happen over the next four to eight years if we our nation is not to sink into socialist mediocrity. He's also said that the FDIC should be privatized, although I don't see that happening. (Sheila Bair's appointed to head the FDIC through 2011).

Town Hall Debate

2008-10-07T21:51:00.003-05:00

I would've given the win to whoever would've, at least once, felt uncompelled to use up 130% of their allotted time to answer a simple question with a simple answer instead of bloviating on and on and on. And on.

I say: they both lost. Again.

Seriously, the question about Afghanistan's political future could've been more effectively answered in less than 12 words than either of these candidates to lead the Free World.

And I'm astonished that McCain can't respond to Obama's criticisms of his corporate tax cut when just about any decent undergrad in economics or business, or even any freshman College Republican could. Or any small business owner, for Pete's sake—to give him a hint. Tie the knot, man!

I think I'm going to pull an all-nighter tonight for the first time in a long time. Getting tons done.

(By the way, I think what McCain was proposing last night was some variant of Martin Feldstein's plan for addressing negative-equity mortgages. On CNBC, Feldstein also suggested that the gov't set up a bank to allow all positive equity mortgage holders on their primary residence to refinance their mortgages to 30-year amortized at a fixed 5.35% interest rate, where he thinks the market rate sits right now. I don't want the gov't in this business for very long, but if they restructured Fannie and Freddie for this purpose and began selling off pieces to private banks, I suppose that could be helpful. It'd be damaging to the sane banks, though, who'd lose more profitable contracts offered to credit-worthy homeowners.)

Consolidation

2008-10-07T16:50:00.003-05:00

The headline: 'NYT' Drops Sports Section Today

Actually, the Gray Lady didn't eliminate the sports section, but instead appended it to the back of the business section. Makes sense: now all the news reported by actual beat reporters with (even sometimes laughable) expertise over their subject material may be found in one place. Less work for bird owners.

Speaking of Pork

2008-10-04T15:27:00.007-05:00

The weather's fantastic today, so I went to the store this morning in mind of buying a whole chicken that I'd butterfly, stuff with a yogurt-tahini sauce and slow grill for an hour or so, then eat the legs and thighs and shred up the boobs and the rest for pita sandwiches for tomorrow and snackin'.

Pork spareribs were on sale for $1.50 per pound, though, so the plan changed once I hit the meat case.

I don't have a smoker and don't cook ribs often, but in the past when I'd done it, I par-boiled the ribs, slathered them with bbq sauce, and finished them off on the grill. Real barbecue connoisseurs swear by the dry rub method, so I thought I'd give that a try today while watching some college football and writing my chapter.

I used Chris Schlesinger's basic rub recipe, although since my grill cooks with gas, I added some of this great St. Louis-style hickory rub to it that's got very good heat. To offset that added heat, I increased the volume of sugar to about 3 tbsp and used a mixture of white and brown sugar in equal parts. Although I'm using a gas grill, it's a real good one with well-seasoned cast-iron grates (I keep a can of bacon fat in the freezer over the winter and apply it to the grates first thing in spring like a stick of deoderant) and the grill's got louvers that can be closed for indirect heating. I'm cooking at the lowest temperature allowed with the louvers closed.

Damn, Jason Ford, you shoulda had that one... finish the route, kid, perfect pass! Next play, Dufrene runs it all the way in from their own 43 on some slick running after the catch on a screen. Illini takes the lead, 17-14.

I'm already a convert to the dry-rub method. Essentially what's happening is that the fat rendering out of the ribs is cooking through the rub and forming a nice sauce under the crust of air-cooked rub on the outside. Looking forward to tasting these puppies in three or six hours.

Here are some pictures of the ribs after cooking for twenty minutes, maybe.

Yum, yo.

Since when

2008-10-03T16:47:00.003-05:00

did we start referring to pork and bribery as sweeteners?

The corruption in our nation's congress is staggering to behold.

This is a nice article, although I would've liked to have seen Sheila Bair given a shout-out. From what I can tell, she's done a fantastic job brokering deals for banks (even in the recent case where Wells-Fargo did her one better). She's been quietly performing as a model public servant.

Missed Joke

2008-10-02T21:24:00.005-05:00

Biden just said that Dick Cheney is the most dangerous vice-president in the history of the office. I would've been tempted to retort that Aaron Burr takes that particularly saucy taco.

I'd make a terrible politician.

Watching the debate is like watching a good ballgame. Always think I could do better until a slick 6-4-3 comes along.

I would have liked if Palin would've stressed her outsiderness by saying something about the RTCII thing that congressmen won't vote for something they claim to believe is needed unless they can secure graft in return for their votes.

(Watched on CNBC, by the way, the most tolerable network around.)

Congratulations

2008-09-29T17:58:00.004-05:00

To the 2008 St. Louis Cardinals for finishing what may have been the most entertaining rebuilding year evar in fine style with a season-best 6-game winning streak and a respectable 86-76 record (three wins better than the World Series champion 2006 season).

We saw a lot of players establish themselves as exciting major league players: Ryan Ludwick, Rick Ankiel, Chris Perez, Jason Motte, Joe Mather, Skip Schumaker.

Aaron Miles had a career year and won some hard-to-win fans.

Chris Carpenter and Josh Kinney showed that they still have it after TJ, although Carp's going to need his nerve issues sorted out (I'm optimistic about that).

Need to finish up my chapter by the end of the month, but I'll get back to writing about baseball in a few days. I don't like the Lohse extension, of course. And I'll grade myself on pre-season predictions and such (Maj had a strong season; I was dead wrong on Hampton).

And a big congratulations to my friends Jeff and Karyn on their wedding this past Saturday.

Fools

2008-09-29T13:33:00.008-05:00

I'm waiting for the floor to drop out with news of the credit rescue plan/RTCII dying in the house, 228-205.

Short-sighted, in my opinion, but it's hard to blame the Representatives in the House. This bill is incredibly unpopular. I thought Bush did a good job explaining why it's needed, but I guess the majority of people hate him so intensely that they laugh off anything he says at this point. That was the impression I got at a BBQ in the Lou on Sunday, at least.

A guy at this party was saying that the plan would cost $10,000 per household, which may be technically true but not of any immediate relevance—I guess that a large part of the public hostility to the plan is a belief that each and every Joe Taxpayer will be required to cough up ten grand to save the asses of a bunch of Wall Street jocks. That's not the case: the rescue plan won't be paid for out of tax revenues, but will be funded by the sale of treasury paper. That's why a key part of the bill authorizes increased deficit spending. It may sound circular, but the treasury will be selling government backed, low interest paper in order to finance the government's backing low value paper. As far as I see it, the longer congress muddles along with passing the plan, the fewer banks will be left standing to sell assets to the RTCII, and the less value there'll eventually return to the treasury to pay off the debt that's financing the rescue plan. Warren Buffett and I agree that this plan is going to end up a very positive net gain for the treasury down the road, that more government debt will be paid down out of this package than the initial investment, so long as Treasury isn't hamstrung. In the current market, treasury bills are a pretty attractive place to squirrel away money, so Treasury shouldn't have much trouble raising the capital they need to buy up the securities if this thing gets passed.

I blame Obama a bit for this:* he floated the idea that taxpayers should be issued checks for any funds returning to Treasury in future sales of the mortgage-backed assets they're buying up. That idea was extremely popular at the BBQ and stupidly misleading—the very worst sort of populism (vote for me! I'll pay ya!). If you believe what I'm saying about how this thing is to be funded, then you must agree that this idea is asinine and would be massively destructive, since in that scenario, future taxpayers would be paying off this debt plus interest. McCain hasn't been much clearer on this as far as I can tell, either, but I've been out of the loop.

It's pretty clear that someone other than Bush is going to have to make a case for this thing to the public, make it clear that it's not being paid for by tax increases, and insist that any returns Treasury gets from it go towards paying down the national debt. I imagine the logical person to step up to make the case would be Obama or McCain, but they both seem to have dug holes for themselves on the issue by playing politics. It's the right thing to do and I'll give credit to whoever is able to provide a convincing case to the American people that it should be done and in a way that protects taxpayers today and down the road as much as possible. I think it's good politics, too. Bush was careful not to promise that the RTCII or whatever you want to call it will pay for itself; a certain politician on the campaign trail beating the dusty fiscal responsibility drum can talk stability, renewed growth, and deficit reduction all in one issue.

* Just a bit, unless I hear that his campaign's astroturfing bad information around to kill this deal, which wouldn't surprise me at this point. An economic collapse would be in his best political interests. I've made an effort not to assign blame for this crisis, but in talking with Democrats over the weekend, it's pretty clear that the popular consensus is that it's Bush's doing and has nothing to do with the mandated "affordable housing" movement pushed by politically connected buffoons at the GSE's and elected buffoons on both sides of the aisle in Congress. The uniform nonsense that I'm hearing from people who don't quite follow this stuff too closely is that de-regulation and the free market run amok is the cause. Not so... If with any primary factor, blame lies in government bullying of the market to create the appearance of a growing middle class—increased home ownership—instead of setting the conditions for a growing middle class—growth incentives to corporations and infrastructure improvements in the energy sector. (This essay makes the root-causes argument that I find compelling.)

Can't believe Congress isn't getting back to work until Thursday. Here's hoping it doesn't matter, but I put the likelihood of that very low. Glad my mortgage is within my means and owned by a properly run bank in Wells Fargo.

I'm pretty ticked off about this. Looking for the roll call from today's vote. Might need to send off a letter to my representatives for the first time. Of course, my junior senator, who I voted for, is probably happy with today's outcome.

Found it here. Tim Johnson voted against.

Later that night: Was out of town and deprived of news for the last four days. It looks like there was some junk in the bill that would've kept the thing from working as well as it needs to. Here's hoping the next version is cleaner, although I fear the opposite—something that I'll want vetoed. (Like Bush ever vetoes anything.)

Today's News

2008-09-24T21:09:00.005-05:00

I thought Bush's address explained the issues pretty well and made a good case.

I even almost enjoyed Barney Frank's reaction aired on CNBC afterwards, in which he basically claimed the thing would pass in the next few days with a few changes (most of which I think are sensible but not apparently exactly what I was thinking appropriate).

I've been diggin' CNBC the past few days: no O'Reilly, Hannity, Olbermann, or Campbell Browns. For a long time I've said the only reliable news reporting can be found in the business and sports pages—not so on television for sports at least since ESPN jumped the shark, but apparently the business reporters on CNBC still take their credibility seriously enough. (Larry Kudlow and Jim Cramer are the only open partisans, but neither pulls much crap on their shows. Maria Bartiromo is spectacular. Then again, I could do without this Donny Deutsch character who just came on.

Other noteworthy news of the day: Change they need. Looking forward to hearing what the Kurdish parties think, if this gets any coverage.

Back to work.

(Break: Very funny rejected text.

About that Crisis Thing...

2008-09-23T20:28:00.011-05:00

First, a disclaimer: all the formal schoolin' I've had in economics came in one semester of macro with the excellent Dr. Werner Sublette, who had a reputation for being a very difficult professor. He was one of my favorite teachers as an undergrad—the material was fairly difficult and he demanded you learn it well, which takes hard work. He didn't assign busy-work or anything like that to make the class more difficult than it needed to be, but if you passed his class, you'd know the stuff well enough that you wouldn't embarrass him in your future work (as I may do in the coming paragraphs). I haven't even gotten around to reading Thomas Sowell's Pop-Econ book, which I've heard is excellent and is in the queue.

All that said, I'll go ahead and stick my thumb in the door hinge by giving an opinion on the "bailout" plan... (Some of this copy-and-pasted from my side of an email exchange earlier.) I've read quite a bit over the past week with my BS-detector set to DC and think I've got the idea. I've also talked to enough people to know that the severity of the crisis is lost on the majority of those in the circles I run. This column from today summarizes things pretty well, I think.

I think it's essential to pass the bill quickly with minimal changes. The bill gives the Department of the Treasury authority to buy up to $700 billion dollars worth of mortgage-related assets from companies headquartered in the US. They're required to report to congress three months after the law passes and every six months afterwards.

These are the "minimal changes" I'd like to see:

I'd definitely want to see a deadline for this subentity in Treasury, public corporation, or however it's structured to finish buying up bad paper: the three months between the day the program gets off the ground until their first appearance before congress would be perfect.

Make the banks decide quickly what they want to unload, make them unload it to get things moving fast, and make sure the monster doesn't stick around forever. Three months of buying followed by a few years of restructuring the debts, followed by securitization and a sell-off period until the debt's all gone: sold or defaulted. If Treasury needs more time to buy, they'd need congressional approval for an extension when they first report of either three or six months to the next report.

Congress wants oversight of Treasury's moves, which I think would be a very, very bad idea; but I'd like to see the thing made more transparent. They should mandate a publicly accessible database to show how much paper was bought from whom and at what price, but treasury should be free and flexible to make those buys without waiting for congressional approval. (Transparency good; oversight bad.)

I'd like to see the price on the toxic debt set very low, some sort of market mechanism to be used to set the price—a plan floated for a reverse auction sounds reasonable, although has apparently been rejected already. The paper these banks need to unload would be ones worth nothing or next to nothing on the market today, so 25 cents on the dollar seems like more than a sufficient offering price to open up these firms' balance sheets and get reliable credit flowing again. There should be some mandated cap on the price Treasury is authorized to pay, no higher than 50 cents on the dollar. Treasury shouldn't be competing with other banks that'd want to buy these securities and other assets; and certainly should avoid deflating the market for any but the most toxic mortgage-related assets. The worthy goal, as I understand it: we're not trying to bail out banks by infusing them with cash, we're trying to stabilize their balance sheets by taking crappy loans off their hands. I'm not interested in punitive measures or anything, but the buying price for this sludge needs to be low enough that it'll be a painful decision for firms to dump it and that the gov't has a chance to not see ALL the paper default. Some of these companies will still fail--if they do, they were managed poorly enough that they should fail, but we can't have it that almost all of them are failing.

If they set that buy price right, this thing'll work and they won't need to spend the $700-trillion figure that Treasury's asking for. If they set it too high: they'll spend too much, never make it back for the taxpayers, and set a piss poor precedent in moral hazard terms. If they set it too low, they won't drain enough crap out of the system to get things working again. I'd frankly prefer they err on the side of miserliness in this case. Some firms need to fail. Some people may need to go to prison.

I'm also not keen on Pelosi's wish for taxpayer cash to directly bailout homeowners in mortgages they can't afford. It'd make sense to give treasury wide latitude to restructure mortgages close to foreclosure in some way to get these homeowners on escalating payment plans to get some of the debt paid down. In other words, once Treasury owns some package of mortgages, they should de-securitize it, separate the wheat from the chaff, and rework the mortgage terms on the very bad loans to avoid foreclosure to the un-credit-worthy homeowners in creative ways. For example, refinancing a mortgage in foreclosure into a 30 or 40 year amortized mortgage where the monthly payment is initially set low and increases proportional with projected GDP growth, correcting along the way along with a low-cost program to strongly encourage these homeowners to pay extra principle down each month to incrementally pay the mortgage off the back-end. Ideally, you put together the right kind of programs like those and the loans rebuild value over a few years during which the Treasury could eat the short-term losses that a private bank may not have been able to ride out. If some of the homeowners can make their payments responsibly and keep up with the growth of the economy in terms of their own buying power, those mortgages would be greatly strengthened in value.

[Added later: I've read quite a few arguments from real economists for why the plan is terrible (notably this one. They all seem to assume that Treasury will be buying these assets at "inflated" or "premium" prices and my reading of the tea leaves suggests that's a mistaken assumption. I don't see this as a Treasury plan to directly capitalize these firms in exchange for worthless paper, but a plan to reduce firms' unmovable liabilities to let them get back to business a little wiser in the way described here. If that's what Paulson wants to do (pay market rates from two years ago for today's garbage), then yes, it would be stupid; and yes, I think his mandate should be clear that that is not how he may spend the taxpayers' money.]

I'm most nervous about who's going to be running this thing next year and beyond. Don't want it turned into anything it's not meant to be; and the people running it are going to have to be some smart, creative people. Done right, this will be a gain for the taxpayer over the span of several years, even leaving aside the crippling damage that would be done by continuing to ignore the problem.

A few other comments, only peripherally related to the Big Deal: inflation rates need to be raised at some point soon. Treasury buying up these assets, even at discounted prices, are going to have an inflationary effect; the dollar's weak; and we're a spaz-out from an Ahmadinijad or a Chavez away from severe, continued energy-related inflation. I'm not advocating the sort of tight monetary policy that made the Great Depression so severe, but interest rates can't be set lower than the rate of inflation for much longer. To counteract the anti-growth effect that'd have, I'd be tickled pink to see a corporate tax cut like McCain's advocating. He's campaigning (a little too quietly) for a rate cut of up to 10% on businesses. Even a more modest cut on the corporate tax rates would be a tremendous boost for job growth, give employees (especially unionized workers) excellent leverage to demand better health benefits with business expenses dropping that dramatically overnight, and disincentivize companies from moving their headquarters or pieces of holdings into tax havens overseas. With the kind of liabilities the federal budget will be taking on with the Big Deal and a Democratically held congress, that'll be a hard sell. I, for one, wouldn't cry foul if components of the Bush personal income tax rates were repealed to offset the costs (and, of course, would be glad to see reductions in spending outside of the military, infrastructure, and education budgets).

It's pretty clear to me that one of the many reasons for this lousy economy we're sitting in is the imbalance of profits in the financial sector as compared to the manufacturing and service sectors. I'd say we've been relying too much on the Fed to spur growth. It's past time to get the broader economy working with a one-two punch of a business tax cut and a weak dollar to facilitate exports, while implementing policies to strengthen the dollar and get inflation under check.

[Later still: I swear I wrote all this before reading Kudlow's most recent column, which says most of the same things in the post-bullet portion of this post.

Also, this article by David C. John covers most of the things I wrote in the bullet-points, although more expertly than I did. A major difference is that he wants oversight by an independent board of financial experts with no ties to the Fed or Treasury. I still prefer my idea of absolute transparency and accountability to the "shareholders" also known as the American taxpayer. I think all government operations outside of the national security sector should be held to that standard. Another is that he doesn't mention any time limit for the acquisitions phase of RTC II, or whatever this thing'll be. I think that's an important requirement, both in ensuring that RTC II will go away eventually and in that it'll give it leverage in pricing—sell or die, to paraphrase Genghis Khan.]

Welcome

2008-09-21T23:59:00.003-05:00

to the Post-Partisan era.

Egads.

This would seem to be a good time to ground myself from reading up on politics and economics for a couple of days step away from all the nasty and focus on work. My chapter'll be done on Tuesday—that'll feel very, very good. If all goes to plan, two weeks from today I'll be able to answer any question about just about anything that happened during the 2007 and 2008 MLB seasons.

Neologism: LIVE

2008-09-20T11:22:00.003-05:00

Over at Althouse, there's a comment thread dedicated to famously misquoted lines: name the most famous one in history and come up with a new word to describe these sorts of misquotations that are more well-known and cited more often than the actual utterance they reference.

Four very good suggestions for the latter issue are:

Malapropoganda: malapropism + propoganda
Substiquote: substitute + quote
fauxquote: n/a
Errtribute/errtribution: errant attribution

I think I prefer the last one the most. The first seems to fault both parties—the original speaker and the reportage; the second makes the revised reportage intentional; faux-quote is good, but too continental; and errtribute gets the connotations right—if anything the word could be taken to mean that you're crediting the wrong person for speaking a good line.

Suggestions for the former issue include Descartes' errtributed "I think, therefore I am," "je pense, donc je suis;" Al Gore's "I invented the internet;" GWB's "The problem with France is, they don't have a word for entrepreneur;" and Ingrid Bergman in 'Casablanca' "Play it again, Sam."

Political Advertisements

2008-09-19T20:22:00.002-05:00

If it weren't for comics like Jim Gaffigan, Nick Vatterott, Brian Regan, TJ Miller, et. al. who keep putting out quality material, I'd be convinced that comedy peaked with season 4 of Mr. Show:

They had the formula down pat.

And from season 3, the finest latency joke of all time.

Good Day to Take Off Early

2008-09-18T21:14:00.008-05:00

I managed to leave work around 1pm today so I could go home and work on my own research. I had CNBC on in the background, watching Closing Bell hosted by the Money Honey, when Charlie Gasparino broke the rumor that Treasury had let go unconfirmed or denied that Paulson was working on an "RTC-type" entity that would buy up bad debt at heavily discounted prices (but better prices than could be had from a private buyer). Word got out and the floor went nuts, with the Dow spiking 200 points over the next forty minutes, eventually closing up 400 or so. Pretty exciting stuff.

If congress approves it (and I'd be stunned if there isn't a race between Clinton, Schumer, and McCain to be the first to get a bill on the senate floor in line with Paulson's recommendations), that'd be an enormous entity. Here's hoping it works as well as the one that got us through the S&L crisis way back when.

~~The RTC was called "The Wolf." This one deserves a cool name, too.~~ (I'm a jackass.) I humbly suggest "The Whale," as suggesting a name is about the only contribution to this that I could credibly offer. (A terrifically massive filter feeder leaving behind a wake of cleansed liquidity).

Too bad the necessary reforms didn't take place back in 2003 or '05, ya know?

For better or worse, a historic moment today. Witnessing the start sure beat working in the office.

(Here's a handy primer on the credit problems this is meant to abate).

Next day: Here's what I've been waiting to hear, from Kudlow's Money Politic$:

The Federal Reserve should get back to its core business of responsibly managing our money supply and inflation. It needs to get out of the business of bailouts. The Fed needs to return to protecting the purchasing power of the dollar. A strong dollar will reduce energy and food prices. It will stimulate sustainable economic growth and get this economy moving again.

Word up.

A Major Law and Reform

2008-09-11T15:31:00.003-05:00

In her acceptance speech, Gov. and VP Nominee Sarah Palin said this of Barack Obama:

But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state Senate.

Obama was, however, one of four senators to introduce the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, a piece of legislation that required the creation and maintenance of USASpending.gov, a public, searchable database of federal expenditures.

I consider that to be a major, and very welcome, law; and I give Obama a great deal of credit for backing it from the start (a total of 47 senators eventually sponsored the bill and two (Byrd and Stevens) installed secret holds to temporarily block its passage into law until September 26th, 2006).

I imagine nobody's touting this as a counterexample for two reasons: Tom Coburn likely wrote the bulk of the bill as this sort of reform is his baby and John McCain was one of the other four senators to introduce the bill. Tom Carper, a centrist Democrat from Delaware and whom I count among the few honorable politicians serving our great nation, was the fourth.

A little further commentary: Back in my younger days, I recall a strong movement to pass a law giving President George H. W. Bush a line-item veto so that he could remove earmarks (and riders) from pieces of legislation without having to veto the entire bill. Thankfully, the line-item veto was never granted to the president—this would have created a destabilizing imbalance of power among the branches of government. But moves towards transparency like the Obama-Coburn-McCain-Carper reform are the correct sort of baby steps we need to get our government functioning and the national debt payed down. I'd like to see the anti-earmark movement gain traction down the stretch in the congressional races.

Stink-Detector

2008-09-09T16:34:00.002-05:00

A San Diego startup is releasing a toolbar that'll highlight in red phrases in a news story that violate journalistic ethical standards or (soon) that are suspiciously similar to official press releases.

Ordinarily I'd speculate on what sort of a similarity scoring algorithm they used to identify text cut-n-pasted from press releases but instead I'll joke that all that red will be high on the eyes.

Clarification: I'm not joking.

Quick Note on Saturday's Illini Game

2008-09-08T20:54:00.003-05:00

Mark Tupper points out some problems with the Illini defense in this column. I admit, we left the game when it got to 47-7 in the fourth quarter to watch the end at a bar. One defender that impressed me a great deal was Dave Lindquist who, to my eye, did an excellent job stuffing the inside running game and also in pursuit of runners around the ends.

On the defensive side of the ball, he was my player of the game.

Free Content and Time Wasted

2008-09-08T18:25:00.005-05:00

It's been a while since I've done one of these, so long that it doesn't seem to come up in a search of the archives. For that reason, I'll go ahead and blow twenty minutes or so on this nonsense:

1) Are you in a relationship with somebody? Not the kind you're thinking of.

2) Do you hate more than 3 people? Absolutely, but it would take some thought to name the top three. Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin, Osama Bin Laden come quickly to mind.

3) How many houses have you lived in? Owned just the one, but let's see: I rented two apartments, a house, and lived in a dorm room since leaving the nest, and three different houses in as many states before then.

4) Favorite candy bar? Snickers

5) Favorite shoes? Hard to say, I've got two pairs: some Docs and Reefs, plus my old football shoes for mowing and playing softball.

6) Have you ever tripped someone? Yes, I was a defenseman.

7) Least favorite school subject? Psychology.

9) Do you own a Britney Spears CD? Of course not.

10) Have you ever thrown up in public? Yes. I climbed up a tree once because I was too drunk to be social. One of my friends found me and passed up a glass of wine. One sip later and I puked out of the tree. Classic. Classy.

11) Name one thing that is always on your mind. My research.

12) Favorite genre of music? Don't have one.

13) What is your zodiac sign? Sagittarius

14) What time were you born? 2100ish

15) Do you like beer? With gusto.

16) Ever made a prank phone call? In elementary school to friends and as an undergraduate to call centers for ridiculous products sold on late-night informercials.

17) What is the most embarrassing CD you own? That first John Mayer record. "Why, Georgia" is a good driving-through-the-country song, though.

18) Are you sarcastic? Me? Nooooo.

19) What are your favorite colors? Cardinal red, Blue n' Orange, and charcoal grey.

20) How many watches do you own? I've got a pocket watch sitting on the desk in my home office. There's a wristwatch somewhere.

21) Summer or winter? Summer. Preferred winter as a kid, though. Too poor to enjoy winter now.

23) Favorite color to wear? Charcoal. Cardinal red in October.

24) Pepsi or Sprite? Pepsi.

25) What color is your cell phone? Grey.

26) Where is your second home? My office, I guess. St. Louis, when I can get down there.

27) Have you ever slapped someone? Yes, but it was a manly slap.

28) Have you ever had a cavity? Yes, just spent a ton of money filling some.

29) How many lamps are in your bedroom? One, plus the lights on the ceiling fan.

30) How many video games do you own? Over twenty, across four different platforms.

31) What was your first pet? A turtle, not counting goldfish brought home from county fairs and such.

32) Ever had braces? Yes, but it wasn't my decision.

33) Do looks matter? They do for a time, but that's not what most of us are remembered for.

34) Do you use chap stick? No.

35) Name 3 teachers from High School. Mrs. Tenholder: fantastic woman, taught Asian Studies and Humanities; Dr. Miller: German; Coach McCaffery: medical science. All first-rate human beings.

36) American Eagle or Abercombie? Neither.

37) Are you too forgiving? I surely think not.

38) How many children do you want? As many as my future wife agrees to.

39) Do you own something from Hot Topic? I don't know what that is. I think I hope not.

40) Favorite breakfast meal? Grilled pork steaks and scrambled eggs for the crew before Saturday's football game at Memorial Stadium. That was pretty good. Breakfast burritos cooked on a campfire is pretty competitive, though. Cream of Wheat in the winter brings back happy memories.

41) Do you own a gun? Several.

42) Ever thought you were in love? Plenty of times.

43) When was the last time you cried? It's been sixteen years, I'd guess. My tear ducts atrophied during puberty.

44) What did you do 3 nights ago? Went to Physics happy hour, had a good time with good people. Then went home and read.

45) Olive Garden? I like their salads.

46) Have you ever called your teacher mommy? Has anyone ever done this? Were they committed?

47) Have you ever been in a castle? Yes. The Prunn Schloss is among the many beautiful things I've been fortunate to have seen.

48) Nicknames? Anything that starts with an L. L-Train, L-Skillet, L-Slice, L-RonHubbard, just L. Most people use my name, though.

49) Do you know anyone named Bertha? Not off the top of my head, but I don't pay enough attention to people's names.

50) Ever been to Kentucky? Yes, but never for very long.

51) Do you own something from Banana Republic? I'd be surprised.

52) Are you thinking about something right now? Finishing this to get back to the research. The pilot for House is re-running on TV, that's a pretty good show.

53) Have you ever called someone Boo? I'm sure I have. Since I don't pay enough attention to names, I have to make things up at times.

55) Do you own a diamond ring? No.

56) Are you happy with your life right now? I imagine I'll be happier with it once I work through a few things.

57) Do you dye your hair? Ridiculous question.

58) Does anyone like you? If not, I hang out with a lot of talented actors.

59) What year were you born? 1977.

60) What were you doing in May of 1994? Finishing up my sophomore year of high school. Probably debating whether I wanted to play hockey again the next season after an injury plagued year. Having a lot of fun.

61) Do you own a Backstreet Boys CD? See 17.

62) McDonalds or Wendys? Neither sells good food.

63) Do you like yourself? More than I like the person who wrote these questions.

64) Are you closer to your mother or father? I'm close with both of them. My dad lives closer.

65) Favorite physical feature of the preferred sex? Mind (I'm a materialist). Then legs (also a pig).

66) Are you afraid of the dark? Not afraid of anything like that.

67) Have you ever eaten paste? Glue paste? No. Bean paste, yes.

68) Do you own a webcam? No.

69) Have you ever stripped? At least twice a day.

70) Ever broke a bone? Both clavicles. See 60.

72) Do you chat on AIM often? I use Pidgin that communicates through their servers, but most people I talk to use gtalk. We use IM at work almost constantly.

73) Pringles or Lays? Neither. Tortilla chips with some good salsa, pretzels, popcorn, or nothing.

74) Have you ever broken someone's heart? Not intentionally.

75) Rugrats or Doug? I find Spongebob pretty amusing.

76) Full House or The Brady Bunch? My friend Nick shot a cameraphone movie at the hill where the Full House introduction was filmed. He's a brilliant dude.

77) Did you like your high school guidance counselor? No. I talked to her once or twice maybe. It reminded me of having to go to confession when I went to a Catholic grade school. Didn't recognize her authority, essentially. I always marched to the sound of my own drum as a youngster.

78) Has anyone ever called you fat? Yes, but I don't recall the times it's happened.

79) Do you have a birth mark? No.

80) Do you own a car? Yes. And it's spectacular.

81) Can you cook? I think I've gotten pretty good at it.

82) 3 things that annoy you: condescension, racism, communism.

83) Do you text message often? Yes. I don't like talking on the phone much, and can almost always say enough in two or three sentences of a text to get a face-to-face in short order.

84) Money or love? Both. Lots and lots of both.

85) Do you have any scars? Of course, some more interesting than others.

86) What do you want more than anything right now? To finish school and start a career.

87) Do you enjoy scary movies? Some are good. Some are unwatchable.

88) Relationships or one night stands? Are you kidding me?

89) Big Red or Juicy Fruit? Juicy fruit, but I don't chew gum very often.

90) Do you enjoy greasy food? I don't like deep fried food. I could eat bacon every day of my life and be happy.

91) Have you seen all the Rocky movies? Not that new one. And had a hard time paying attention to the one where he was a manager or coach or whatever.

92) Do you own a box of crayons? No.

94) Who was the last person that said they loved you? I don't recall.

95) Who was the last person that made you mad? The last time I lost my temper was when I was held up in traffic for a Critical Mass bike protest while driving from one awesome thing to another. That was over a year ago.

96) Who was the last person that made you cry? I honestly don't remember the occasion when I last cried.

97) Who was the last person that made you laugh? Myself. I come up with jokes all day long, most just awful.

98) Who was the last person that you fell for? Jill Wagner.

99) Who was the last person that instant messaged you? A friend and colleague in Baltimore.

100) Who was the last person that called you? A client returning a call when I was at work. Last personal call I got was Saturday from a friend wondering why I hadn't shown up at his BBQ yet. I had shit to do.

A Somewhat Dangerous Prank

2008-09-01T19:53:00.003-05:00

Every member of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign community just received an email, spoofed from the Chancellor's email account, reading thusly. Note that this is 100% a prank and not from Chancellor Herman:

Dear Students,

Many of you may be aware of an event known as Rush. It is my objective to
warn you of the potential downsides of Greek organizations. I advise you to
not succumb to the aggressive recruitment tactics used by these
organizations. It has been my concern over the years, that the Greek culture
of alcoholism and lack of respect for the community degrades campus life.
These organizations present themselves as prestigious, yet are
discriminatory, serve to perpetuate social inequality, especially with
respect to the opposite gender, and promote a lack of diversity. Many
students have expressed concerns with regards to safety on campus,
particularly due to Greek culture and behavior. It is my hope that a
student's experience on campus strengthens one's individuality, but the Greek
system emphasizes the group above all, without cause or reason. This is
detrimental to the purpose of universities.

I hope that you will consider wisely.

GDI Chancellor Richard Herman

There are obvious problems with the email that suggest that this was written by someone other than Herman, but the real giveaway is the "GDI" designator on his name. (Stands for "God Damned Independent" amongst undergraduates who don't join Greek organizations and think there's something noteworthy about that. I personally considered setting up an entirely separate Fraternal system based on the Mongols instead of the Greeks—gave it up when I couldn't secure a yurt or enough horses for successful raids.)

It's going to create some headaches, although not for me. Lots of complaints, hastily thrown together letters to the student newspaper, etc.. (Impressive: they're on this quick!)

But it's dangerous in a Boy Crying Wolf sense. We get security related emails from the Chancellor at times (though usually from the Public Safety chief). Spoofing email headers isn't cool, in any case.

Gorbachov, Gorbachov.

2008-09-01T18:52:00.004-05:00

I don't imagine I've eaten a twinkie in twenty years, but it's absolutely certain that I never will again after watching this fantastic music video extolling the reforms Mikhail Gorbachev brought to the Soviet Union, including twinkies, blue jeans, popsicles, and NO ZOMBIES.

I was taken by surprise by the technique ol' Gorby used for dispatching the final batch of zombies.

A Loss, but an Impressive Game

2008-09-01T13:38:00.004-05:00

If Juice throws as well all season as he did in many of the drives on Saturday, the Illini are going to have some fun this Fall. (The two late underneath INT's should hopefully not happen again.)

The new Illini HQ website is pretty impressive. They've even got their equivalent of the Future Redbirds' DFR, recapping the prep commits weekend games each Monday. I'll be at next Saturday's game, watching the beatdown of Eastern in person. Looking forward to seeing the newly renovated stadium from the inside.

The First Few Cycles

2008-08-30T12:15:00.010-05:00

Creationism in the schools: this popped up right away at TPM and is overblown and easy to damage-control.
"I don’t think there should be a prohibition against debate if it comes up in class. It doesn’t have to be part of the curriculum."

She added that, if elected, she would not push the state Board of Education to add such creation-based alternatives to the state’s required curriculum.
Sounds sensible enough to me. One of the most important things kids need to develop in early grade school is their nascent BS detector—parents try to help out with that by asking, "So what'd you learn in school today." I expect she'll probably nip this bud in her appearances this Labor Day weekend.
They'll go after the State Trooper controversy. This one will backfire badly once they find out what the guy did and that Palin herself wasn't involved. The prospect of seeing leftist defending a dirty cop must be the stuff of Karl Rove's most ticklish dreams.
They'll dig up anyone who'll say anything bad about her. The star will be a professor emeritus at the University of Idaho who'll try to help out the Obama campaign by saying disparaging things about her scholarship while she was getting her degree there. It'll turn out that she never took his class and he has ties to CPUSA or whatever they call themselves now and backfire.
Obama's campaign has already stepped into the experience trap. They'll find that hypocrisy isn't such a mortal sin outside of hard-left circles (see the failure of the flip-flop charges to make a whit's difference in the 2004 campaign), and McCain's camp will direct it into a debate about cabinet membership—McCain, not Palin, would be setting his (and the left will absolutely freak if McCain wins and names his ANSA, if it's who I think it'll be—one of my favorite people ever to serve publicly in the federal government); and it'll be the inexperienced Obama, not Biden, who would assemble the Obama cabinet. That hasn't come up yet, but it's something that's greatly concerned me).
The misogyny of the "netroots" has already come out in force. Hillary's 18,000,000 voters won't come over in a block, but some will and these elections are won in the margins: I've heard compelling arguments that GWB won his first presidential election by outperforming expectations in the African-American vote in key states. They won't peel off many traditional-Democratic voters from the under-30 crowd, but they'll get some from the over-40 group, who've been around long enough to know that Roe v. Wade isn't going to be overturned (although I'd like it to eventually be supplanted by legislation that guarantees women and their doctors freedom from prosecution for certain types of abortion and secures their privacy in such matters from future scrutiny). And I'll guarantee that they'll break off a large number of traditionally democratic women voters over 70 who'll want to see a woman in power before they shuffle off their mortal coils. The amount of crossover will largely depend on how Biden behaves himself (I think the man's a self-important buffoon who doesn't know when to shut his pie-hole). The conventional wisdom in Democratic circles that this is a desperation move, reminiscent of Dan Quayle, or referring to Palin as "Britney" isn't going over well as far as I can tell, even with younger women I've talked to who I'd consider Democrats or left-of-center independents. In any case, that line of attack is setting up such low expectations that she'd be hard pressed not to exceed them. I don't expect her to refer to Pervez Musharaff as "The General," for example, and she'll know that Uribe is the president of Columbia, a nation that'll come up later in the campaign as an example of Obama's foreign policy naivete and manipulability during his Senate tenure.

Ed Morissey is thinking along the same lines but giving away all the plays. Give 'em more rope, Ed!

In unrelated news, I've been monitoring membership in the Facebook group, I SUPPORT RUSSIA IN ITS CONFLICT WITH GEORGIA, and note that they've lost 125 members since last night(5250 to 5125) when Russia announced that they're annexing S. Ossetia and Abkhazia. I'm hopeful that membership will continue to decrease over the weekend... but prepared for disappointment.

Another update: Kleinheider provides an exegesis on some of the points made in here. I would admonish him for giving away the playbook—but look at the comments he's getting...

It's Sarah Palin

2008-08-29T10:22:00.010-05:00

John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. I'm frankly blown away by this. My top two choices would have been Fred Thompson and then Sarah Palin, and thought neither were at all likely—I'd prepared myself for Romney, who's stronger on economics than McCain and would have made Biden look foolish in the debates, but has little else going for him.

Palin's a fantastic choice—Obama's post-DNC bounce won't last the weekend.

A few quick thoughts on the candidate, Sarah Barracuda (that page will probably have quite a bit of graffiti on it: she's rock-solid on energy policy, the biggest domestic issue this season; she's inoculated against charges of inexperience, because she can correctly say that she's done more in the past two years as governor of Alaska than Obama's done in his past four years as junior Senator from Illinois; she's as extreme a beltway outsider as you could find, so the Democratic strategy of "Bush: Term III" won't fly as gracefully anymore; she's solidly conservative and will be well received by the core Republican constituency, as well as libertarians like myself; and she's as personally appealing as a politician can be in these times.

There'll be plenty of analysis about her over the next few days, but I'd like to discuss her husband a bit.

I'd been more than a bit nervous that Bill Clinton would be the first husband of a female President or Vice President. (First Lord? First Gentleman?) I expect there'll be plenty of women elected to the presidency in my lifetime, but the first husband of one of these women will set the precedent for those future first Gents' roles, and Bill Clinton would be unideal for setting that precedent, being a globally beloved, high profile fellow. He would have been a traveling celebrity, and something of a policy nuisance, given his depth of knowledge coupled with his presumed lack of security clearance. (I hope to God that Jimmy Carter doesn't have access to anything sensitive.)

I don't think I could imagine a better man to define that role than Sarah Palin's husband. Father of five (including a very recently born infant with Down's Syndrome She'll get Pujols' vote in his first presidential election as a citizen), outdoorsman, and continued to work for an honest living in spite of his wife's election as governor of the largest state in the US. The typical role of first lady is to take up a social cause and promote volunteerism and charitable giving for that cause, except for Hillary Clinton in Bill's first term, who took up a social cause and promoted socialist government policy. Laura Bush has quietly advocated for early childhood education and childhood literacy over the past eight years.

If the McCain/Palin ticket wins in November, I expect Todd Palin will need to quit his job, if only to placate the Secret Service. It'll be interesting to see what sorts of causes or ideals he champions as he pioneers a new position. It'd be nice if he promoted traditional fatherly values—hard work, taking the kids into the outdoors, etc.; promoted the National Parks; and possibly raised the issue of the growing problem of boys underperforming at school for whatever reason (that'd get him some good press from Dr. Helen, who's already ecstatic with the pick, as are the other two women I've talked to about Palin's selection this morning).

Also, this may be the dumbest line I've ever read (over-the-top hyperbole there) in a news article:

She and her husband Todd Palin, have five children. The latest, a baby, was born with Down syndrome.

No shit? A baby, huh? (I assumed the hack had meant to type, a boy, but apparently she must be a non-native speaker.

Added later: I should mention my distaste for Barack Obama... I'm not enthusiastic about finally finishing my schoolin' only to be talked down to by an egotistical, socialist academic for another four long years.

Good call, Beldar.

Impressive: Before I've even left work, the McCain-Palin team already seems to have set up permanent residence within Obama-Biden's OODA loop.

Bummer

2008-08-28T21:31:00.004-05:00

It's not gonna be Fred tomorrow.

That would've been fun.

Apparently Sarah Palin either. The VP debate there would've been the two candidates wrestling to change the subject from energy policy to foreign policy and back again. Update: Well that was an effective smokescreen... Watching fireworks, indeed.

In completely unrelated news: HURGY FURGY HURGY!

Burying the Lede

2008-08-26T11:53:00.004-05:00

While in St. Louis this past weekend for the Braves series (tales of that most likely to come), I picked up a River Front Times and was impressed with their cover article: Blood on the Tracks, an inflammatory title for a generally quality article giving far deeper context on the recent spate of crime around the U-City Metrolink stops perpetuated by small bands composed mostly of minors, a story that was superficially covered by the Post-Dispatch. Reading along, I was pretty much blown away by the reporting in this article: Chad Garrison had done what journalists ought to do—get the local gossip and flesh it out with solid data to expose it to the purifying light of investigative journalism. Fine work, providing all points of view objectively, including puerile ravings from some of those involved.

But Chad buried the lede big time here on page 5 (sixth or seventh page of the print edition):

State law prohibits Metro from fining anyone under seventeen caught riding the train without a ticket.

As Adam Savage is fond of saying, "Well there's your problem!"

In all the time I've ridden the Metro, I've never seen anyone check anyone's ticket, and I'd be amazed if half the people on a given train had payed for the trip. They really should start doing that and the state legislature needs to get rid of that loony loophole.

September Roster Prognostication

2008-08-20T17:30:00.004-05:00

As of right now, the 40-man roster for the St. Louis Cardinals stands like this:

* 68 Mitchell Boggs     R/R               
* 29 Chris Carpenter    R/R     15-day Disabled List 
* 34 Randy Flores       L/L               
31 Ryan Franklin        R/R               
64 Jaime Garcia         L/L               
* 77 Blake Hawksworth   R/R               
44 Jason Isringhausen   R/R               
* 56 Kelvin Jimenez     R/R               
** 19 Tyler Johnson     S/L     60-day Disabled List 
** 52 Josh Kinney       R/R     60-day Disabled List 
26 Kyle Lohse           R/R               
41 Braden Looper        R/R               
46 Kyle McClellan       R/R               
* 64 Jason Motte        R/R               
* 30 Mark Mulder        L/L     15-day Disabled List 
* 65 Mike Parisi        R/R               
63 Chris Perez          R/R               
35 Joel Pineiro         R/R               
36 Russ Springer        R/R               
48 Brad Thompson        R/R               
27 Ron Villone          L/L               
* 50 Adam Wainwright    R/R     15-day Disabled List 
37 Todd Wellemeyer      R/R               
* 67 Mark Worrell       R/R               
21 Jason LaRue          R/R               
4 Yadier Molina         R/R               
8 Troy Glaus            R/R               
* 70 Jarrett Hoffpauir  R/R               
3 Cesar Izturis         S/R               
7 Adam Kennedy          L/R               
12 Aaron Miles          S/R               
5 Albert Pujols         R/R               
* 13 Brendan Ryan       R/R               
* 59 Rico Washington    L/R               
24 Rick Ankiel          L/L               
54 Brian Barton         R/R               
* 16 Chris Duncan       L/R     15-day Disabled List 
** 43 Juan Encarnacion  R/R     60-day Disabled List 
22 Felipe Lopez         S/R               
47 Ryan Ludwick         R/L               
62 Joe Mather           R/R               
55 Skip Schumaker       L/R               
* 61 Nick Stavinoha     R/R

On September 1st, major league rosters will expand, making all players on the 40-man roster eligible for addition to the active roster. Minor leaguers added to the 40-man roster for a September call-up do not burn an option year, but would only be eligible for postseason play if they replace a player on the disabled list. Players on the 60-day disabled list do not count towards the 40-man roster.

As you can see, the Cardinals 40-man roster is full right now, although there will doubtless be a few players added for September, so some roster moves will need to be made.

Space is available. Mark Mulder (bad shoulder), Chris Duncan (neck surgery), Mike Parisi (elbow ligament), and now Jason Isringhausen (torn tendon) can be added to the 60-day DL to open up four spots. Kelvin Jimenez may as well be designated for assignment and removed from the 40-man to open up a fifth opportunity for one of our farmhands with a future in the organization, or at least in Major League Baseball.

There were two answers from Mo's P-D chat today at noon relevant for this discussion:

azbirdies: ... Do you think Josh Kinney has a legit shot at pitching for us in September? Sure would be nice to see that killer slider again.
John Mozeliak: I did see him throw last week and I do believe he has a chance, hopeful he can begin a rehab over the weekend in Springfield. I agree if healthy he can help.

Steve Earp: Mr. Mo, who can we expect to see showcased from our increasingly, majestic farm system come September? Will you offer Cards fans a taste of the future with Rasmus, Wallace, Anderson, D. Jones, Freese, Barden, Greene, et al? BTW, thanks for being disciplined at the deadline.
John Mozeliak: I have a meeting scheduled for Friday to determine who we think deserves the call-ups. I have laid out certain criteria that I feel needs to be met before we begin the promotion process. I do think we will benefit from the expanded rosters. At this point I will wait until everyone has had a chance to weigh in before making any public announcement. Our young players have had a strong year and that is good news for Cardinal fans.

He also made this comment: I would also note that the bullpen will get a shot in the arm when we get to September as we can expand our rosters.

If Josh Kinney is successful in his rehab, and the last I heard is that he's feeling very strong, the number of potential openings would drop to four with Kinney coming off the 60-day. I expect Motte, Boggs, Flores, Worrell, and Kinney would fortify the bullpen as players already on the 40-man and that Brendan Ryan and Nick Stavinoha will get the call for bench help.

There are some other worthy players in our farm system who could use the extra work and can contribute to the Cardinals' success. Josh Phelps would be a very nice bat to add to the bench. Colby Rasmus should be finished with his knee rehabilitation, and if he's medically cleared to play would be an excellent addition. Tyler Greene will need to go on the 40-man roster this offseason or be exposed in the Rule 5 Draft, so it'd make sense to bring him up and see how his glove works at the ML level (before sending him to the Arizona Fall League to continue building his prospect status). Brian Barden should get a September call-up again—if he isn't added to the 40-man this winter, he'll be a minor league free agent. The way his bat has come back around this year, we'd be wise to audition him for the Spiezio-type utility infielder spot for 2009. It'd be very nice to add Bryan Anderson to have a third catcher available, especially one with a solid bat from the left side. If you wanted to add all five of those players (plus Josh Kinney), you'd need to make another roster move. The most logical one would be to DFA Rico Washington, who's had a decent season but not much of a future with the Cardinals, given the sudden near-ready depth at 3B that we've got in Freese, Craig, and Wallace.

That'd be a lot of September call-ups. And an exciting, talented roster.

End of Summer Vacation, Part I

2008-08-17T15:34:00.007-05:00

I went down to Fox Ridge State Park with a group this weekend for some fishing, camping, and hiking. The forest there is impressively healthy, with a solid diversity of trees and ground cover including a large percentage of native hardwoods. I suspect the fact that a little over half of the park is public hunting land contributes greatly to its health. (Note: local problems are different, given my observations and limited education in plant biology, in that the thriving trees are the fast-growing softwoods, mostly invasive non-native species, to the detriment of the native hardwoods, notably hickory and oaks.) All of the other campsites were occupied by people in RV's and judging by the fact that the raccoons largely stayed away from us, I'd guess that most people that stay in this park are more experienced campers than most. (As an aside, few things piss me off more than the sort of rookie camper that goes out there to "be one with Nate-churr" or whatever they call it when they feed wild raccoons. Call me an elitist, but there's enough ways to do things right to leave no excuse to do things wrong.) We didn't even have a dog with us and, while I saw a raccoon, none left any evidence of having come through our campsite.

Good park. High recommendation.

We went fishing on Ridge Lake, a Illinois Natural History Survey field office. They provide you with a rowboat that has a live well, and whatever you catch goes into the well. A biologist motors out to you every hour or so to collect your catch for measurements (she said that, among other things, they were studying muskie feeding habits which involves having to anesthetize the fish and pump his stomach). If your fish is of legal size, you have the option to keep it for supper, which is what we did.

I caught an 18" catfish and another of our anglers took a 17" cat. We caught probably 30 bluegill and at least a dozen cat under the 14" limit imposed at ridge lake. I hooked a (possibly) bigger catfish and brought him to the size of the boat when he gave a last gasp jerk that broke the line. My party also caught two bass, neither big enough to remove from the lake. Fortunately, no muskie. My boat had the most luck. We set up in a shady cove with plenty of fallen trees and had little problem drawing the fish out. I filleted that two big 'uns and the as-fresh-as-possible meat was dredged, pan-fried, and freaking delicious. Next time, I think I'll use this butchering technique instead. My only complaint is that they didn't have a cleaning station in the park—we had to improvise one in a place that wouldn't interfere with other campers or local wildlife (aside from those two fish) but that put a little excessive wear on my knees.

This morning, we all hiked up to the Eagle's Nest and were disappointed when Hitler's silverware had already been looted and the forest had overgrown to obscure the view of the Embarass river. It was a great hike, though, and as already stated, was impressed with the quality of the forest.

[Disclosure: I never went camping until I was seventeen years old or so. This was my second fishing trip. ]

Update: Pictures were requested in the comments. It turns out a few were taken after all. Here's a picture of me rowing. Not flexing in futile vanity, but rowing. I had other shady, log-strewn coves to get to.

FYI

2008-08-15T12:11:00.005-05:00

Starting last midnight, the Big Ten Network is available on Comcast, channel 66 in Champaign-Urbana. There will be a 90-minute show tonight with footage and interviews from Camp Rantoul.

In other TV notes, a show called Camp Lazlo on cartoon network just had an entire episode on ass pennies.

More classic sketch comedy video goodness: Like my daddy said... "Never trust a man what's a MADE-A-GAS!!!" How 'bout another space brew, Gleep Glop?

And likely, fifteen seconds of tonight's TV news will be devoted to the revelation that the bigfoot thing was, in fact, a lame hoax.

Not an Alec Baldwin Fan

2008-08-13T14:29:00.002-05:00

But the skit below may be one of the funniest things ever on SNL:

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

He's Gonna Wake up with a Cramp

2008-08-13T12:13:00.002-05:00

Supposedly, a couple of dudes found a Bigfoot carcass in Georgia and will present it on Friday.

Supposedly, they saw several live ones on the same day, walking upright.

Call me skeptical.

Job Well Done

2008-08-12T15:40:00.003-05:00

From Bing West's essay, The War in Iraq is Over, What's Next?:

The problem is not American force levels in Iraq. It is divisiveness at home. While our military has adapted, our society has disconnected from its martial values. I was standing beside an Iraqi colonel one day in war-torn Fallujah when a tough Marine patrol walked by. "You Americans," he said, "are the strongest tribe."

But we cast aspersions on ourselves. The success of our military should not be begrudged to gain transitory political advantage.

In 1991, our nation held a parade after our military liberated Kuwait. Over the course of more than five hard years, our troops have brought stability and freedom to 25 million Iraqis, while crushing al Qaeda in Iraq. Regardless of disagreement about initiating the war back in 2003, Americans should unite to applaud the success of our troops in 2008.

The whole thing is well worth reading and not very long.

Bing West wrote The Village, which is perhaps the finest book written about the Vietnam War if you're interested in how it was successfully fought at the platoon-company level, at least in some areas. He's written three books about the Iraq war already.

Spooky Fascists

2008-08-12T11:43:00.008-05:00

I love the brazenness that comes across in this story.

You have to wonder if the Chinese government has a division of doctors armed with calipers and other precision measuring devices to determine exactly how cute and Han a particular little girl is.

Speaking of loser political philosophies, while looking for something else, I came across the website for the (don't click if in Germany) Libertarian National Socialist Green Party. I imagine one's head would explode if they convinced themselves their political philosophy was so internally inconsistent. Let's dicuss:

If you're a libertarian, you necessarily reject socialism; if you are a Green (you would prefer a trans-national super-government primarily geared towards enforcing globally standardized economic, social, and consumption conditions that protect the environment above all else), you necessarily reject nationalism.

I'm guessing it's a joke—or rather a Discordian infiltration of the modern Nazi propoganda machine. In some of the ridiculous essays/fan-fiction at that site, you'll find the classic hacker euphemism "fscking" used as a self-censorship for the more familiar expletive.

Anyways, it'd be nice to show a little embarrassment instead of, you know, this:

The reason was for the national interest. The child on camera should be flawless in image, internal feeling and expression.

Next up: revelations of Running Man-style CGI recreations of Olympic events so the "good guy" wins? (You know the scene: the F/X guys create footage of a cage-battle between the real former governor of Minnesota and a digitally faked current governor of California. Starts at 2:12 on that clip, goes to 6:01. "Proving once again that right and might are the same!")

I'm kidding. That technology doesn't exist, unless the competitor was Gollum or Yoda. Which would make for an interesting contest in the high jump or pole vault, I reckon.

Peripherally related, but this interesting article discusses how the dimensions of the pool has likely been a factor in the way records are being shattered in these games. In twenty years, I expect to see Pool-Neutralized swimming statistics.

Took Long Enough

2008-08-11T23:12:00.003-05:00

Cardinals prospect Maj made his debut with full-season A-ball Quad Cities today after a long wait. 2008 sandwich pick Lance Lynn was unable to make his start today because of forearm tightness. In his stead, 2008 18th rounder Jared Bradford, an extreme groundballer with great control and who limited home runs as a collegian at LSU, pitched the first five innings, striking out four and walking one. I'll let Quad Cities' Director of Broadcasting a Media Relations, Ben Chiswick, explain the rest, quoting from his postgame writeup (that incidentally has an unfortunate subtitle):

Appearing for the first time in a River Bandits uniform, Maj took over in the sixth. The 22-year-old impressed in his Midwest League debut, allowing just one hit over four frames. He retired 12 of the 13 batters he faced, responding to a one-out double in the sixth by setting down the last 11 batters in order. Maj added four punch-outs and struck out the side in the eighth to earn the save.

Keep it up! Dave Duncan's a fan of pitchers who don't walk batters or give out home runs, ya know.

(And for good reason.)

(And same goes for Jared Bradford, who's off to a very solid start to his pro career.)

Roundup on Georgia

2008-08-11T22:26:00.002-05:00

Sense of Events: The balance of power just tipped, folks, and there is not one darn thing we can do about it.

Transatlantic Politics: Georgia could fall by tomorrow [Tuesday] morning.

Belmont Club: For the present, an intact Georgian army will delay the Russians at the Mtskheta chokepoint to buy time; time perhaps to get what they can behind the Lesser Caucasus and to whatever fate awaits.

Front Page Magazine: By invading Georgia, Russia is also following its age-old historical pattern. When Moscow is weak, as it was after 1917 and in 1991, the states on its periphery break away. But when the center is strong, as it is again becoming now, it sets out to reincorporate those very same peripheral states.

Strategy Page: It's not yet clear what the Georgian government was thinking when they allowed the border skirmishing to escalate to a military effort to restore government control over South Ossetia. It didn't work, as the Russians promptly counterattacked and drove the Georgian troops out of South Ossetia. The Georgians can try a guerilla war, and hope that their new relationship with the United States and the European Union will add some measure of protection. That's a false hope.

Fred Kagan at the Corner: The likeliest outcome at this stage is that Moscow insists on the departure of Saakashvili and other high members of the Georgian government from power and from the country, and then returns to its positions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia with significantly increased force presence. In that scenario, Georgia will be helplessly under Russian domination. (Conclusion at the end of a bulleted list)

That certainly seems like the intended outcome as expressed by the Kremlin.

Kenneth Anderson tears apart a NYT front page editorial written by their bureau chief. I've read this book and consider few of the enthusiastic communist sympathizers discussed in it more obvious than said bureau chief.

Of course, the Perry-Castañeda Library Map collection at the U. of Texas (always linked at the bottom of the sidebar on this page) has up-to-date maps of interest, including many useful ones for the current invasion of Georgia.

Missed Opportunity

2008-08-08T22:49:00.004-05:00

I'd hoped that McCain would get out in front on this particular issue. I thought he was about to earlier in the campaign when he made hints about "Wall Street greed," which I assumed to be laying the groundwork for a radically different philosophy for monetary policy and growth vs. inflation.

Big missed opportunity: "Strong Dollar" is an appealing phrase, when it results in prominent economists discussing how it would lead to lower fuel prices and reduced inflation on commodity goods on the cable news shows, you hit pretty hard where you need to.

Of course, Bernanke's a smart guy and probably saw the bubble for (largely) what it was.

Hey... Listen!

Moved

Moving

I'm not Laughing Either

Roster Prognostication, Part I

Nothing Nice to Say

Paul Petrino Hired

Some Things I Learned in the Past Week (Part I)

So What've I Been Up To...

Congrats to Tim Lincecum: CY 2009

New Fence

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

Bookmarking it for later

The Highest Number

Need a little help

In other news

Life can be cruel

Opening Day Lineup

Mo was Right

Roster's Set

Gameday Links 2009 (Week VI)

Friday, April 3, 2009

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Two Links

Back

Gameday Links 2009 (Weeks IV & V)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Friday, March 20, 2009

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Monday, March 23, 2009

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Friday, March 27, 2009

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Monday, March 30, 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Gameday Links 2009 (Week III)

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Friday, March 13, 2009

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Monday, March 16, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Finally

Gameday Links 2009 (Week II)

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Friday, March 6, 2009

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Monday, March 9, 2009

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Sunday Dinner

Gameday Links 2009 (Week I)

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Friday, February 27, 2009

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

2009 Roster Prognostication

Never Thought I'd See It

Breakout Season

Wile E. Coyote Would Be Proud

Read it and Weep

Stick it to The Man

Summoning a little snark

Chin up!

Simple Question

Roster Suggestions

Shipfaced: I & II

A Rare Specimen: The Effective Flowchart Joke

Fridge Repair