owbc

As soon as the lead off guy got on I thought for sure Hader was coming in. Baffling.

It sucks that the Badgers have been an embarrassment for so long. On the Kraken-Canes broadcast the other night they showed the team photo of the 2009 Badgers with Derek Stepan and Justin Schultz (who were facing each other). Brought back some fond memories of the good years.

San Diego is one of a chunk of mid-market MLB teams that can really spend if they want to but also go through rebuild cycles and haven't hit the sustained success of some of the big, big markets. It helps being a one-sport town that is fairly high income as a whole. One always wonders how permanent the current state of MLB is. Like is it possible for the Dodgers to ever be bad again? The mid-markets are more likely to ramp up and then ramp down spending -- Washington DC has been ramping down lately, Seattle is ramping up. Sometimes it feels like the Brewers are on the same playing field as these teams, but then they see a window of opportunity and can spend like crazy for a few years. We're seeing San Diego shrug off some really bad decisions like the Hosmer contract and the same might be the case for Robbie Ray in Seattle. The Yelich contract would be way less of a problem for them than it is for the Brewers.

Unfortunately the past 3 years does not predict the next 3 years. We may have already burned the peak of both Burnes and Woodruff. It's frustrating to watch the Phillies make the run that we should have made with Burnes and Woodruff, but you need more than that, and you need some luck.

Unfortunately the past 3 years does not predict the next 3 years. We may have already burned the peak of both Burnes and Woodruff. It's frustrating to watch the Phillies make the run that we should have made with Burnes and Woodruff, but you need more than that, and you need some luck.

It's what separates us from the Diamondbacks, but far does it separate us from any of the 12 teams that made the playoffs? We're in a deadball era, Burnes and Woodruff are certainly in the top tier of MLB starters, but there are more like 20-25 starters who could be placed in that bucket, not 5-10. And there are more and more of them coming up from the minors every year. Burnes and Woodruff certainly have the potential to do in the postseason what Nola and Wheeler are doing for Philadelphia. In fact, they might have done that in the 2021 playoffs if that hadn't run into the Braves, who had the rotation to match them.

It's what separates us from the Diamondbacks, but far does it separate us from any of the 12 teams that made the playoffs? We're in a deadball era, Burnes and Woodruff are certainly in the top tier of MLB starters, but there are more like 20-25 starters who could be placed in that bucket, not 5-10. And there are more and more of them coming up from the minors every year. Burnes and Woodruff certainly have the potential to do in the postseason what Nola and Wheeler are doing for Philadelphia. In fact, they might have done that in the 2021 playoffs if that hadn't run into the Braves, who had the rotation to match them.

Housing prices are clearly going to come down, it's just a matter of time. I'm throwing a ton of cash into savings to wait for the deals at the end of the upcoming recession when prices are low and rates have gone back down. In an ideal world the vacation rental market crashes as well...fingers crossed.

Playoff baseball is amazing, MLB should be thinking of as many ways as possible to give its fans more high stakes baseball. At least we have the WBC to look forward to next year. All this talk about MLB “needing” a big market team in the LCS infuriates me. There’s nothing better for the sport than having these long-suffering franchises make the World Series runs and it’s going to pay massive dividends in TV ratings and attendance in those cities in 2023. And all of us who are fans of the sport are going to see some new faces for a change. If the ratings suck, too bad.

The gap between the 1-2 and the lower seeds was less than regular season records would indicate. The Braves’ rotation was a mess. The Yankees have been mediocre for months. Seattle had the same record as Houston from mid-June onward. The Dodgers were the true juggernaut but we all know San Diego has the talent to be better than their record and they rode the momentum of the wild card series.

And the Hader redemption arc is complete. Almost an immaculate inning to finish it.

The byes were supposed to help the big boys get an easy ride to the LCS. Instead we’re on our way to 3 upsets. And the Astros completed what was probably the least impressive sweep of all time.

I watched all 18 innings of that Mariners game in person. I can’t imagine a worse form of baseball-related torture, and especially for a fan base that is up there with the Brewers for most tortured in baseball. Ugh.

This year might finally trigger Manfred to make the LDS a 7-game series.

This discussion started with a number of very serious concerns about the current and future state of the oil supply. The issues with renewables are certainly not trivial but compared with the status quo the future looks promising. And as noted by others, renewables are already cheaper and the gap will continue to grow as the technologies scale. If you want to look at a place that knows how to scale things quickly, look at China. EV sales recently surpassed 20% (25% if you include PHEVs). They are 2-3 years ahead of their targets. Now that the "inflation reduction act" has passed we're already seeing billions of dollars invested in battery factories. So it's just a matter of how fast the transition is at this point and how close we get to fully electric (75%? 85%? 95%). It's closer than you think. Other states are starting to follow California in banning gas car sales after 2035. I think we're maybe 10-15 years from seeing gas stations starting to close due decreased demand. Most of them will be gone by the 2040s. Imagine telling someone in the year 2005 that Blockbuster Video would cease to exist in 2020...

Pitch to Alvarez, get burned. Pitch around Alvarez, get burned.

Fortunately for the Mariners they are not a small market team.

Scott Servais is a huge Packers fan. I think most reasonable Mariners fans would say that this year is mostly about accumulating postseason experience for a year or two down the road when they will have a better chance at taking out the juggernauts at the top of the AL. Game 1 was a classic example of a young, talented team coming in with a ton of momentum and not being able to hold the lead once the Astros regrouped. I expect them to show resiliency today because they have all year, but the Astros are such a well-oiled machine that it's going to be a tall order to come back after giving away a game like that. They remind me of the 2008 Brewers, but at least if they get to game 4 they will be starting someone better than Suppan!

I meant it about staying on topic. No more discussion of the Cleveland team name!

The truth is that in order to hit the CO2 emission targets, there needs to be BOTH electrification of the vehicle fleet AND at least a 30% reduction in miles driven. So you're right in that we can't just swap in EVs and call it a day. And I also agree that the battery supply + battery waste are going to become issues, especially as time goes on. Methane still releases a ton of CO2 so it will only be useful in limited applications. Hydrogen is intriguing but producing the hydrogen without releasing CO2 is challenging. I would imagine both of those getting used in some settings for trucking/heavy machinery. Nuclear...again, I agree that we should be doing way more nuclear than we are right now. But the truth is that right now it's cheaper to do wind and solar than build new nuclear. At least we have delayed closing down some nuclear facilities...that's a small win. Otherwise, I don't know what to say. The political dilemma is that we need massive CO2 emissions reductions while not making people feel like the quality of life has been disrupted. So EVs it is. In other news, did anyone else see PepsiCo's earnings report? Increased revenue and profit despite a decrease in sales. Sure adds fuel to the argument that inflation is mostly corporate price gouging.

Ok ok ok, back to the playoff topic please!

I have no idea why Servais didn’t go with Erik Swanson there. Tried to get too cute and overmanaged the situation.

Remember, the previous president basically said "drill baby drill" and it still didn't happen. Anyway, we did this to ourselves and I have zero sympathy. By "this" I mean that we let global capitalism run free without any concern to the consequences. I could list a dozen examples but the most obvious one is that when vehicles got more efficient we took all of that efficiency and turned it into massively large trucks and SUVs at a time when gas prices were relatively cheap. We did it because it was "what consumers wanted". Now consumers want low gas prices for their huge vehicles and the gas prices will never be low again because the price is set on the global market and every country in the world is trying to get cheap oil. Nobody wants to invest in more drilling or refinement--again, the ship has sailed. You can't retrofit refineries for cleaner energy like they did with coal power plants. Meanwhile, the price of lithium is going to soar and there is a huge amount of money to be made investing in mining and processing EV battery components. We'll be thanking ourselves times a million in a decade that we took a hit right now and finally gave EVs the kick they needed to take off. And from the consumer perspective it's a pretty obvious decision to buy a fuel efficient vehicle or an EV at this time. I saw that regular gas was back to $5.50 this morning and I laughed as I drove by the gas station in my EV. I didn't even have to mention "climate change" for the above to be true, but once the climate impacts start getting really bad in the 2030s-40s the push for green energy is only going to be more massive than it currently is.

These are some really awesome matchups for the divisional series. I’m hoping a few of the underdogs can exorcise their demons. The extra off day on Wednesday in the ALDS is quite the favor to throw to the wild card teams and with the sweeps over the weekend the pitching matchups tomorrow are not as lopsided as they could have been. Baseball players like their routines and the 1-2 seeds have been sitting around all weekend. We’ll see what happens… I have a feeling we’ll see the road teams steal some games this week and I expect 2-3 of these series to go 5 games.

Regular extra innings is terrible. They shouldn’t even do it in the postseason. Nobody wants to sit around for hours waiting for a solo HR. By the end of that Brewers/Dodgers one in 2018 I didn’t even care who won, and that game probably cost us the pennant. The runner on 2nd rule is what it is, but I think it would be more fun to take away a defender every inning (8 on defense in the 10th, 7 in the 11th, etc.). Reward putting the ball in play. Of course the 1-0 game is immediately followed by a 10-9 one because that’s how baseball is. And you can bet that the Guardians will show up at Yankee stadium and suddenly remember how to hit. Good riddance to the Cards, their playoff exit couldn’t have been scripted any better.