Cool Hand Lucroy

I'm way more optimistic on Yelich than most of this board, I think. His 95 OPS+ is BY FAR the worst of his career, and it still makes him essentially a league average hitter. There might be a case for playing him less. Indeed, I think there is. But the idea that he's washed feels premature. Players dip from time to time, and he's only 35! I mean, I know that seems old in baseball terms, but in this era where elite athletes are having longer careers in much more demanding sports, writing off his final two contract years seems like a big mistake.

I will maintain, when this long stretch of excellent baseball is behind us (which hopefully won't happen for a long, long time), that the Brewers understood something about identity that a lot of stat people write off. I can remember something similar with Carlos Gomez. The Twins basically tried to make him a slap hitter. When he came to Milwaukee, they let him be himself, and it shook something loose, including his best two years in the big leagues, getting the guy MVP votes. That stuff happens regularly, but it happens with the Brewers more.

Maybe Joey O is just a 3B? I'm half-joking, and I've seen others make the point before, but his best production has been with him in that role. Probably just a coincidence. I think this was a well-managed game by Murph. Got the 5 from Henderson, went to the rested bullpen quick, and closed it out with a day off tomorrow.

I'm a limited replay purist, but the one sport where it's helped is tennis. That's probably the only one. Those matches are much smoother with the Hawkeye system, even though it certainly has its limitations and definitely impacts officiating jobs. Seems to me like, when you can use technology to easily to automate (offside calls, goal line situations), it has a better chance of being useful without limiting game flow.

I actually think soccer could learn a lot about replay from the NHL, namely: 1) Challenges are only allowed after goals. 2) If you lose the challenge, you give up a power play. Obviously, the second one is trickier in soccer (though it works well enough in LAX), but I certainly like the idea that VAR should be involved in a challenge capacity and not as an all-time default. The NHL largely preserves the flow of the game and the celebration of goals. That's a good thing. I want to be clear that I'm not arguing for a challenge system per se. I do think it would be an improvement, though. As someone who watches the Championship (2nd division English league) a lot, the lack of VAR there actually enhances the viewing experience. Sure, sometimes your team gets burned, but that's life. Goals are goals. Offside is reasonably adjudicated. It's just a better emotional experience. Given how inconsistent VAR officials are (it's literally a different person every game), I'd be absolutely fine with using the semi-automated offside and goaline technology and calling it a day, especially in club play. You want to bring in challenges for the World Cup or Champions League or Championship playoff, okay, maybe. But this tournament was very bad. I will say that VAR is MUCH less intrusive in the Prem, La Liga, and the UCL than it has been in the past, and I think a lot of it is down to officials just largely understanding that they are in an emergency, egregious oversight role.

Lots of great locations for major soccer tournaments upcoming. The women's World Cup will be in Brazil, and then you've got Euro 2028 in Ireland and the UK, World Cup 2030 in (mostly) Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, and the 2031 women's tournament back in North America. Combine that with the Olympics in LA in 2028 (plus the French Alps in 2030), and it'll be a good five years to be an international sports fan. Lots of local opportunities, plus some fun possible trips! I think this tournament proved what the NCAAT often does--the governing bodies are awful and corrupt and greedy beyond any sense of decency or morality, but at least the games always show up. Whether it was the Tartan army, Yamal's brother, or Cape Verde, there was enough transcendent joy to last the next four years. It may well be a 64-team tournament by then, but... I'll be curious to see how this impacts fan interests in the game here in the US. A rough proxy might be checking to see whether Peacock (the Prem), Paramount (Champions League), ESPN+ (La Liga and Bundesliga), or AppleTV (MLS), get any kind of subscription growth. I think club soccer has a little bit of room to grow, but it might be closer to its ceiling than people think. We'll see. In any case, I'm glad the best team won.

Spain the deserved winner today. Argentina was justifiably passive after the red card, but I thought they played a bit too defensive overall, especially given how dangerous Messi made them look in the last 10 minutes. Kind of had a feeling Nico Williams would make a difference in this one, but it's stunning how Spain managed to do this after both he and Yamal (the two main reasons Spain was won the '24 Euros) had just so-so tournaments. That's a really complete side. When you factor in their Olympic gold medal and their Women's World Cup trophy, you'd have to say they have the most successful program in the world right now and up there with one of the best runs ever. As a La Liga partisan, I think how good that league is gets lost in the focus on the Prem. There are a whole bunch of really, really good teams. It's that Barca and RM are on another level. Athletic Club might be one of the most underrated sides in Europe, and they do it all with only Basque players. Real Sociedad is quite good, so are Betis and Villareal. Rayo punches above its weight. Definitely the second best league in Europe for my money, and it's paying off at the international level. When you consider this side didn't even have any Madrid players (I know Cucurella is headed there), that tells you how good the system is. EDIT: No problem with the second yellow on Enzo. I thought the disallowed goal after the foul was soft, but probably a foul. Some close calls, but all in all I thought a pretty well officiated match, especially given Argentina's overall approach.

Honestly, I think part of the IGT negativity is that it's always been that way, but another part is that people actually expect to win every game now? I remember negativity as a kind of jokey, coping mechanism for all the bad baseball we had to watch, but now it feels angrier because there's actually stakes.

Was looking into AQI issues, since I know this has been a thing for a few consecutive years now. No such thing as a magic number, but a lot of the previous PPDs and one relocation have happened with AQIs above 200, some closer to 400. AI says MLB is "likely to scrutinize anything over 200," but that seems like just pulling a number out of the aether. Sadly, this might have to be something put into a league-wide policy. You could make different rules for indoor/outdoor stadiums, but if it's going to impact half a dozen series every year, you probably want to tie yourself to some clear metrics (AQI above 200 outdoors, above 250 in or whatever) rather than wait and have to make the call each time, facing all kinds of scheduling pressure and incentives to play.

This would be my guess too. It's one thing to keep getting injured ligaments or tendons. It's another to come up with dead arm multiple times. Love to see Big Woo and Jim Henderson helping the pitchers out, at least. Good luck to Woodruff, and thanks for the many great moments.

Having Hall back would be a big, big help. A guy who you can give you a few innings at a stretch. Let's hope we can weather a couple of tough weeks, buy some time for the pitching staff, and go into October as healthy as possible.

Your indoor air is as good as your outdoor air, plus whatever filtration mechanisms you can employ. During COVID, there was a push for institutions (schools, hospitals, corporate offices, colleges, etc.) to invest recovery money into better filtration systems, but a lot of that infrastructure work never got done (mainly because of political gridlock and general COVID skepticism). I'm not sure what the ventilation at AmFam is like, but if you're clocking AQI in the 300s, it's going to get overwhelmed pretty quickly. If it's 170 or so, that's still bad, but your ventilation can probably help out. A lot of this is also about fan safety and community health. It's generally not a good idea to be holding large public events when the AQI is this unhealthy, especially in urban areas where AQI tends to be worse, and traffic volume can be a contributor. Things appear to be improving, so it's very possible the game occurs. Take care of yourself if you're going. I know there's a stupid and weird social stigma around masking, but it's very helpful for all kinds of reasons in this environment!

100. You can shell up for 10-15 minutes, but 30-40 is a whole different animal, especially with maybe the most creative player in history on the other side. That kind of thinking has hurt a lot of teams this tournament. I think Spain handled their lead against France best of all. I'll be rooting for them on Sunday (I root for Betis and probably follow La Liga most closely), but it's been a fascinating tournament.

I agree with most of this. It's a great post. I think you're right that soccer probably requires more specialization than other sports because of the technical aspect. As a guy who's played in 30 and 40+ leagues and been among the fittest participants, I can vouch for getting my butt kicked on a weekly basis simply because I lack the foot skills of guys who were mediocre in high school. It reminds a little bit of getting drilled in racquetball by a 70-year-old. If you can execute the right movements, fitness and athleticism matter a lot less. That's certainly harder to see when you're watching elite games on TV. The technical skill is so good it becomes the water the game is played in, and what you can see more easily are things like speed and endurance. Where I'd differ slightly is whether that level of technical expertise needs to be taught through an academy system beginning at 6 or 7 or 8. Japan doesn't do that. They've probably only been about as successful as the US (and never made a WC QF), but with a much smaller population and in a tougher qualifying region. They've also, I would argue, more consistently produced contributing players in top-5 leagues. The median age at World Cup 2022, in terms of starting at a pro academy, was 13 years old. I think we tend to overrate specialization, especially pre-puberty. An easy place to agree to disagree. I will say that I think your broader point is right on. Caring about the results in individual games tends to be intoxicating in the US, and skill development suffers because of that. That's a pretty deep cultural problem, and I think changing that will, as you say, probably go the longest way to fixing the issue. I think the easiest peer country to consider is Australia. A sports-mad country. Lots of success in certain sports (swimming, rugby, etc.) but always having to scrap in soccer. The difference there is probably expectations. Maybe the answer is to assume the US is too much divided in its attention to really care about soccer, to recognize we'll never match the passion of Argentina or England, and that that has pros and cons. Maybe it means caring less about talent development and more about cohesion and tactics and group attitude. I don't know. Either way, good thoughts.

A great first half for this team, then a bad series to cap off an okay week. Definitely a good time for the ASB. Hard to complain too much being 5 games up at minimum. They'll have to play well in the second half, but I think this team has outperformed expectations and battled through some tough injuries. Hopefully we can get some hurlers back to health and take advantage of a pretty soft schedule.