owbc

I think Wong is my new favorite Brewer

Hamstring, apparently (watching Twins broadcast). It was pretty clear he pulled his hammy rounding first base. Kind of silly since he could have jogged to second. Meanwhile...Twins causing trouble for Woody...

I would nominate either Rosati's or Ann's for best Hwy 100 pizza. And now I'm hungry.

Of course! Grew up 5 minutes from Organ Piper. Went to many birthday parties there. I hope it survives the pandemic. I also have no idea if the pizza was any good or not

I don’t know why but I lost interest in the tournament this year after the opening weekend. Not many interesting storylines. Michigan-UCLA was the one game that interested me, I caught the last 5 minutes and it was disappointing to say the least. Give me Gonzaga - Baylor pretty please.

Can’t say I’m thrilled about facing Maeda on Opening Day but I like watching the guy pitch. Let’s keep our streak of playoff appearances going this year

I had never heard of the term until it came up in an all-male support group that I was in during college. The most straightforward example would be men being uncomfortable expressing vulnerability or weakness, crying, or asking for help. Generally because men grew up with male role models behaving a certain way and the way men were portrayed in pop culture/TV/movies, especially 10+ years ago. Definitely more of a thing for millennials and younger who experienced one thing growing up and found themselves in a different world. It's difficult for many young men to navigate that space and it should be talked about more...and yes, it goes both ways (i.e. women not wanted to date shorter men). Since dating requires vulnerability it tends to show up in that realm.

That is part of why Bumble became so popular, since the women have to send the first message. I think Hinge is the other popular one right now although I'm not sure what is unique about it, it might be that people tend to migrate to new apps every couple of years to stay one step ahead of the creeps/spam/etc. At least where I'm at, the stereotypical dude on a dating app is a software engineer at a tech company who enjoys video games, coding, occasional hiking, and craft beer. Talks about himself for 90% of the date, including not-so-subtle references to how much money he is making. Successful, career-orientated women are a big turnoff to this type of tech dude. My wife tells a story about how one of these guys had her over to his place so she could watch him play video games. After hearing these type of stories over and over again from multiple sources, it made me very concerned for the future of the world, but it did provide a lot of clarity on why tech algorithms prioritize the things that they do. And made me realize that fragile masculinity is a real and serious problem in our society.

Hypothetically, how would one even buy tickets without a smartphone? Is that still a thing? Does 902-4000 still work? I don’t even carry my wallet sometimes since everything is on my phone now...cash is gone and even physical credit cards are barely necessary anymore.

It's a good opportunity to test these changes with a small crowd.

The underlying problem with everything is that the value of sports channels to cable providers is packaging them with the rest of the channels. So non-sports fans are subsidizing the price of sports channels. Sinclair is paying a few dollars/month per cable subscriber for an RSN, but the actual cost per RSN viewer is quite high. If you do a back-of-the envelope calculation...a $20/million per year TV deal for a RSN that averages 50,000 viewers works out to $400 per viewer. $66/month for the 6 months of baseball season. I have no idea how much they are pulling in from advertising, but even if you are generous with that number, and subtract other expenses, you're talking $40-50 per month that the Brewers would have to collect from 50,000 fans for a streaming package. And that's for a $20 million/year TV deal which is about as low of a number as I can make up. So the whole system is set up to use sports as an incentive to sell bundled cable/satellite packages. The second you offer an a la carte option like MLB.tv within the RSN market the whole system falls apart. Of course the remaining question is whether this business model is sustainable or not. Given the dollar figures involved (the Cardinals signed a $1 billion TV deal that pays $50-85 million per year), it's too valuable to do anything else right now and the loss of some fans/viewers is inconsequential. Like every sport, success is measured solely in terms of short-term revenue, so the pathway to "success" is obvious, do whatever makes the most money. Everyone involved including the players subscribes to this model. What's interesting to me is what's happened in the post-Bud Selig era. In the Selig years the positive revenue numbers were coupled with positive increases in attendance and viewership. In 2018 they started to move in opposite directions, with revenue continuing to go up but attendance noticeably dropping. The debate about why that is could go on forever--yes, it's not just MLB that is seeing this trend--and now you throw in the pandemic which is likely to attendance/revenue that is decoupled from pre-pandemic numbers. Additionally, MLB has started squeeze money out of every possible source that they can -- the minor leagues, service time manipulation, and certainly the new CBA is the biggest target of them all. Fun times for sure...

This reminds me of a time I was sitting at a little hotel bar and this guy walked up (mid 30s maybe). He was the type to go on endlessly about himself and mentioned he was failing at Tinder. So he voluntarily pulls it up on his phone for my opinion. Well his photo was some semi-seductive selfie of him laying on a bed shirtless (he wasn't in shape). His bio mentioned his cat and then had some sexual esque sentence. I can't remember it exactly and while it wasn't bad it certainly seemed like it would give a woman the wrong idea about what he was after. So I basically told him his profile pic was pretty bad and he should have something more normal WITH a shirt on. Also...probably don't mention your cat and don't infer you want to get to know someone romantically before you even message them. He brushed off my advice and thought his profile was perfect...sigh, probably still single without a single match on Tinder. Hahaha yes! Men with cats. One of many easily-avoidable mistakes. My wife was on the apps so long that she started taking screenshots of all the profile pics of guys with cats. She had (has???) a folder full of dozens of them and put all of them into a photo collage. Now I need to find the right moment to ask her if she still has it...

My wife and I met on Tinder in 2016. I was fairly new to the online dating scene (it was crazy to jump into that world after getting divorced), she had been doing it for years and was on the verge of giving up. In big cities there are seemingly an infinite number of people you can potentially go on dates with. I found it amazing. I would have never crossed paths with someone like my wife without a dating app. It changed my life. At this point I think most people recognize that one of the dangers with the apps is that it can become addictive to always want to find someone slightly better than the current person you are dating. When you combine that with the social norm of 'ghosting' it leads to people being very guarded and cautious about getting hurt. Even so it is emotionally exhausting to go on all those dates. It's not uncommon to go on multiple dates on the same day. You have to have thick skin. It's the tradeoff for the potential number of people you can meet. Hopper, if your son is having trouble with the apps, I recommend getting some third-party opinions (preferably his female friends) to review his profile or hiring a dating consultant. I'm not even kidding. You only get one first impression and in the dating app world that's your cover photo and the first line or two of your profile.

Big Ten = overrated Pac 12 = underrated

Baylor is good.

So much better to watch when the zebras let them play a bit.

I assumed Archie Miller becoming available is what triggered Marquette to make a move. I'll be shocked if anyone else gets the job. Didn't Marquette try to land Miller back in 2014?

Hopefully they are firing whoever gave him the extension as well.

Gonzaga - Alabama - Purdue - Illinois Mostly just random guessing. I figure Baylor will go down, I have Wisconsin beating them but I have zero confidence in that actually happening. Maybe Purdue will be the ones to do it? Hoping for some Big Ten vs. Big Ten matchups in the Elite 8 or Final Four. That would be fun. Give me OSU-Purdue in the South.

I am on board with banning the shift and requiring all IF to remain on the dirt. Unfortunately, the launch angle revolution and birth of 3TO baseball is a result of the shift and ballplayers' inability/laziness/unsexiness (call it what you want) of not wanting to learn to hit the other way or punch the ball through holes. By requiring all IF must remain on the IF or the IF grass prior to a pitch AND there must be two players on both sides of second base, I believe it accomplishes what MLB wants and that is the elimination of 3TO baseball. Do I love this solution? No. It upsets me that people in the game can't go the other way or have learned to accept a K rather than hit it where the opposing fielders are not. I truly believe this is laziness on the players' part and not wanting to look like a punch and Judy hitter. As a first-step solution to 3TO baseball though, I will accept it. I agree that it's a less-than-ideal solution, but if you listen to any player/coach/manager/GM interview in the last several years about the shift, they all repeat the same talking points about how analytically it makes more sense to go for doubles/HR even with the shift on. Every MLB team has run the numbers and reached the same conclusion. If power hitters tried to hit against the shift, they could do it with a modest success rate, but the math says that hitting a single isn't worth the trouble. If stolen bases were easier, maybe that equation would change for some hitters. Analytics is the real scapegoat here, not laziness. The rule changes are to combat what analytics has done to the game.

So, if hitters are not going to adjust whether there is a shift of not, then what's the need for a significant rule change? Manfred clearly believes that the shift dampens offense and we can't have that. Gotta please the casual fan who, for some reason, equates more offense to being more enjoyable game to watch. Oh...and we also need to shorten the game at the same time. Does not make any sense. I think there is pretty good agreement among fans about what constitutes aesthetically pleasing and entertaining baseball. There are different pathways to achieve that, but generally more balls in play, less strikeouts, movement on the bases, and faster pace are all appealing to the vast majority of fans. MLB has essentially acknowledged that there are too many home runs and that the more lively baseball was a mistake. There are a whole bunch of different pathways to achieving that, but I think the first thing that we have to do as fans is acknowledge that the game has strayed away from the ideal and it's totally fine to change the rules to improve it. Many MLB rules (or lack of rules) are from a different era, and when teams figure out how to exploit the game to their advantage (a combo of power pitching + shifts in this case), something has to be done to clean it up. The 'no shifting' rule is so simple...infielders must have feet on the dirt when the ball is thrown. That's why I like it. I don't know how else to solve the shifting problem in such a simple way. But I know it can not be solved by bunting...you can't successfully bunt enough 90+ mph breaking pitches with movement to make the math work out vs. trying to hit doubles/HRs. However, incentivizing hitting singles goes a long way toward helping--and increasing stolen bases will make hitting singles (including bunt singles) more attractive if you can turn more of them into doubles with a SB.

First time watching this year...this offense is much easier on the eyes than last year. A successful hit and run??? What is this???

That's how I see it. It's like in the NFL when the west coast offense took over then the defense had to adjust and voila you've got Tampa 2. Maybe spray hitters will be the next undervalued thing? MLB hitters have been extremely successful at changing their approach at the plate. They are doing exactly what they should given the way the game is currently played. It is remarkable that runs scored per game has remained nearly constant despite the incredible improvement in pitching velocity and movement, bullpen use, specialists, etc. The only reason that has happened is because hitters HAVE adapted. When the defense shifts, they WANT you to bunt or hit for contact the other way. They are GIVING YOU a single. But they know you won't try to hit a single because analytics says that trying for a double or HR is more valuable. Hence why the rules need significant adjustment.

I see it as rewarding 3TO baseball. The 3TO mentality is to swing hard and in the same style on every pitch. That leads to very predictable locations where you hit the ball. That is why there is so much defensive positioning. If a batter changes their swing based on count/situation then defenses wouldn't do such a dramatic shift. And with the increased ease of stealing a base the value of the BB just went up. Is that true? I’ve never seen an article showing that spray charts have grown more predictable. I thought it was a result of analytics.

I love all these rules. Every single one is targeted at reducing 3TO baseball. A+