lostfan

I've chimed in on this before but I really just don't buy BABIP as meaningful at all when talking about offensive players. For pitchers yes, but for hitters, not so much. It's an elaborate, but generally useless post-hoc rationalization people have for explaining when a player has a down year, and has turned into a total myth in itself. Average isn't linked to BABIP. BABIP comes about as a result of a player making contact with the ball, which also determines his batting average. It doesn't take a genius to see that things aren't going well for a player when his average is a couple dozen points lower than it is, and BABIP is just re-stating what is completely obvious. Players with high batting averages (Ichrio, Mauer) will always have high BABIP, players with low batting averages (Swisher, Dunn) will have a low BABIP. BABIP gets used as an excuse for players when they aren't hitting and as a dismissal when they're hot and then "luck" is brought into the equation. Again, you don't need to look at BABIP to know when they're slumping like Dye did or when they're red hot like Adam Jones was for the first few weeks of this season because that's been happening as long as baseball has existed and there are any number of reasons that could happen. There is nothing BABIP tells you that you can't see from looking at batting average. Take a look at those numbers for Jeter. Yes his BABIP changes year to year but generally speaking they're about 30 to 50 points higher than his average, which also changes, just as every other baseball player who has ever played since the game was invented has had happen. If you pick a random player you'll see the same kind of cushion, and the difference doesn't fluctuate that wildly. How so many people buy into this reverse logic of BABIP carrying the batting average I'll never know. If I played in the major leagues my BABIP would be like .050 and I wonder if anyone would call me unlucky, when in fact I really just suck at baseball.

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Oct 21, 2009 -> 05:01 PM) Thanks! Any thoughts on the neighborhoods around that area? Safe? Fun? I think the university is around the Mt. Vernon area, and the Aquarium is obviously Inner Harbor. I'm used to cities having lived in Chicago and Atlanta. I wouldn't want to live in the city itself. It just feels dull and flat, and even the really nice neighborhoods are no more than 5 minutes from the hood.

^^That's where I live I'm kind of meh about Baltimore. It's kind of like any other American city, there's stuff to do, there's bad areas to avoid, there's stuff that's unique to here. Camden Yards is a great park, I love it. The inner harbor is nice, and there's Fell's Point and Federal Hill. The housing market is still pretty inflated even after the collapse IMO, it makes me wonder where all these people are that have 120k jobs. I still think it's funny as hell every year when they have 1.5 inches of snow and pack Wal-Mart buying canned food, bottled water, bread, and toilet paper. Idiots. If you ever did want to do touristy stuff there is always DC 40 minutes away.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 21, 2009 -> 01:02 PM) Yes, but one question for lost, Does the FBI ever have to worry about entrapment? They do it to potential terrorists all the time, the thing is whether they can prove that the person actually had intent to do something. If they intended to carry out their act with/without the FBI and the FBI's informant/decoy was just a conduit then they have no leg to stand on.

QUOTE (bmags @ Oct 21, 2009 -> 09:32 AM) Wow, that was the one time I read the comments section and felt proud. lol they totally ripped him a new asshole, I love it.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 11:18 PM) Harris was hurt before he got his extension. I think you're right. I don't think they anticipated him falling completely off like that though. He's only just started to not look like s*** anymore.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 10:10 PM) The defense is old, expensive, and not very good. That's who I have in mind when I rip the giving out new money to current players like it's candy strategy. The bonus money is paid early so they don't have to hang onto the s***ty players for that long if they don't want to. Out of the defense, the only one that I'd be looking at that's overpaid and has to go is Vasher. But it's not like you can just arbitrarily replace these guys, unless you draft them you have to find them in FA and that costs even more and leads to the same problems.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan101 @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 09:50 PM) Absolutely, and that's been a strategy that has really hurt him quite a bit. That doesn't apply in this case though since this move was a no brainer. If you are going to give that much up for a guy who you think is a franchise QB, you keep him around for the rest of his career. ?? Not really, keeps the cap under control, keeps players off the FA market and from having their cap numbers inflate. Harris got hurt, so that can be overlooked. The only one that really backfired bad was Vasher, who was decent when he signed his extension but blew fat cock ever since. Kreutz has declined too but it was hard to argue with his extension at the time. Hid that with Urlacher, Alex Brown, Tillman, Gould, Clark, Orton, tried it with Briggs, didn't work, but Briggs ended up playing himself. Kreutz isn't playing up to his contract but you couldn't argue with the extension at the time when he was an All-Pro center. I don't see how extending contracts of players that have proven themselves in your system is more risky than giving random contracts.

Not unexpected. One thing you can say about Angelo, when he sees something he has that he likes, he jumps on it early so he can keep it.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 07:55 PM) I think you are missing the bigger picture here. The right-wing crazies won't care, might get more incensed, but they don't matter here because they are so allergic to Obama anyway. Far lefties also don't matter here, this won't do anything to help or hurt. People in the middle, split them up. If they watch Fox, they aren't going to want Obama telling them their network is biased - they aren't going to say "oh, better switch!". They will not care, or care and be more likely to watch Fox. The middle of the road people that don't watch Fox will start wondering what the hubub is about - AND WATCH. Its politically dumb. Not over the top dumb, I don't think its a huge effect, but the effect there will be is negative. It gains nothing other than making ObamaCo look defensive. Eh I think he's starting to get annoyed with the news cycle being hijacked by stupid s*** that he's forced to acknowledge and thought he had to do something. For a while he was trying to ignore them but that just lets the bulls*** gain traction. At the end of the day I don't think this will hurt him politically. Conservatives have been doing the s*** for 40 years incessantly, has it hurt them?

The latest faux outrage is from the "revelations" that the Obama campaign was "controlling the media." If they bother to read what was said they'd see that the strategy was mostly to bypass it altogether, if possible, because they actually saw the media as a liability.

QUOTE (Cknolls @ Oct 20, 2009 -> 11:16 AM) Has she done that before, i.e. names addresses etc? Maybe not Malkin herself but yes conservative bloggers have done it resulting in harassing phone calls, death threats etc.

Denver would be the Super Bowl favorite if Cutler still played there.

QUOTE (knightni @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 04:39 PM) Winrar is great for compressing and decompressing files. Of course it is. I'm just wondering why the extra step?

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 03:56 PM) And that is pretty unacceptable, considering how many other templates there are around the league every single week, for the past several years now. It's really not rocket science. Small, quick running back -> run outside + sweep + short passes in open space.

Wolfe is a deceptively good blocker. I don't know how, but he gets it done. The problem with having Wolfe on this team is Ron Turner just not knowing what the f*** to do.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 03:14 PM) We went play action a lot towards the end of the game last night. I don't know if it actually worked, but Cutler was at least going through the motions and doing it. Do you realize how many third and longs we had yesterday though? And even though Cutler was like 8-11 or something on 3rd downs, we only converted a few of them. That problem is because we can't run the ball, nor do we have enough plays in our playbook designed to get 10 + yards. I really think we have the perfect wideouts and tight ends to run a more aggressive pass offense, it's just a question of being able to do it at this point in the season. Hopefully, our running game will appear suddenly and make this all a moot point, but we certainly have the weapons (especially the qb) to be able to install a more high-octane offense if we need to. Yeah, I'm acutely aware of the 3rd and longs, that's part of my burning hatred for Frank Omiyale.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 02:29 PM) The play calling in the passing game should be adjusted then. Right now, we are still play calling a passing game designed to be complimented by a strong running game. May as well start calling the passing game for what it is - most of our offense - and the phase of our offense that will have to cover the other, somewhat like the Cardinals and Saints passing games. I actually don't have any complaints in the pass plays that are being called because it's working. The offense would be dangerous if we actually had a running game, not just with runs to support the pass game but also to allow Cutler to use play action (have we seen that AT ALL this year?).

QUOTE (DukeNukeEm @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 02:08 PM) We have two good receiving TE's, two good deep threats, two good RB's in the passing game and Jay Cutler. No more "we are a running team", just ditch that whole facade. The passing game has to open up, because running the ball with those interior three guys we have is just wasting downs. They already have, the pass-run ratio is like 60/40. They pay lip service to the running game, that's about it.

If it's at night then go through the city.

QUOTE (ChiSox_Sonix @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 10:47 AM) Which in turn allows you to "buffer" faster, no? Indeed.

They signed another back, and then he got hurt and is done for the year.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 10:28 AM) Pace was the best OL all game. He made a critical error on that play, yes, but his play the rest of the game helped keep the Bears in it anyway. Yes.

QUOTE (kjshoe04 @ Oct 19, 2009 -> 02:10 AM) I just looked at that. Thank you. Her ramblings about Cutler being the reason the bears lost just made my night. I'm pretty sure she hates my guts. It isn't hard to figure out who I am in that group. She had developed an attachment to Orton and refused to get excited about the Cutler trade in the offseason, even a little, because he had "never done anything in Chicago." Fine if she'd admit she was wrong but she hasn't, she just doubles down and waits for him to f*** up so she can justify everything else she's said. She talks about his 2 interceptions but doesn't talk about the 2 TDs, the 300 yards, the long run, the 4th quarter drives (of which he's had in every game since being a Bear) or anything else good he's done. It's hilarious, but sometimes I wish she'd go play with firecrackers.

Why do people use winrar for torrents? That is so damn annoying, first you have to download winrar when winzip is already included with Windows, secondly what's the point of file compression when you're downloading a file that's like 8.4 GB and the speed constantly varies? What, is it going to compress the file to an even 8 GB? Whooooo I saved 20 minutes on a download that takes a couple of hours that I have to spend decompressing the file! Plus, until I get my share ratio up, I have to hold the couple dozen compressed files AND the uncompressed one that I can actually use, so the space saving issue is moot.