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There are a lot of "good sends" that end up in the baserunner getting thrown out by 10 ft. The odds of scoring a runner from 3B with 2 outs is around 33%. So you should always send on 50/50 shots with 2 outs. With < 2 outs, if you are doing things right you should still end up with a fair number of outs at home plate over the course of a season.

I'm guessing an equal number runners will get sent home next year, assuming the Brewers go by the analytics. Sedar wasn't sending them on his own, there were instructions from above to be aggressive.

Most advertising dollars are spent on products with where there is little difference between the choices and a relatively high profit margin. Soda, light beer, automobiles, household items, insurance, and communications providers.

This should be quite entertaining. It sounds like TLR is familiar with analytics through his more recent work with the Red Sox. I would consider his stance on social justice issues to be a more significant concern. Can't believe he's back.

I'm confused by "Restrictions are a result, not a cause." Are you arguing that restrictions are the result of business failures? He's saying the restrictions are because of Covid explosions, not the cause of a failing business. Which I think is flawed because a) we started forcing things closed before there was an explosion and b) what I just posted above. Ok I think we're on the same page with the source of our disagreement here. This is starting to make sense to me. Well at this point in time, at least in the state and county that I live in, the restrictions are directly, quantitatively tied to COVID case counts and positive test rates. Hit a certain target, then more businesses can open and others can have higher capacity. So if we fail to hit the target and it hurts businesses, then you can: (1) blame the people for allowing the virus to spread (lack of mask use/social distancing); (2) blame the government for having too FEW restrictions and/or not enforcing restrictions, thus making the virus targets unreachable (or for not squashing the virus levels to zero); (3) blame the government for having too MANY restrictions, thus preventing businesses from opening. OldSchoolSnapper seems to be (3) and I'm a (1). Other people might be (2) or some combination of (1) and (2). The position might also be different depending on location and culture and the specifics of the government restrictions, since they are different everywhere.

It isn't that simple though. Take for example Disney World, a massive operation which is allowed to open but under capacity limits which drastically lower the crowd, which in turn have led to tens of thousands of layoffs (more yesterday), which leads to fewer people pumping money into the businesses that are opened. This is just one example and an extreme one, but it applies all over the place. Disney Land has had it even worse, they still haven't been allowed to open - at all. Fewer weddings are fewer photographers, bartenders and DJs getting paid. The concession workers at sporting events, the bartenders at the Riverside, etc. The retail chains are not offering the same level of seasonal staff because the demand and crowds aren't there. This would have happened on some level anyway, there would have been lower attendance at anything regardless. The argument is that the restrictions take what would already be a recession of sorts and add red tape that make something already difficult even more so. If you aren't exposed to the people being ruined by the economic aspect of this, it's pretty easy to forget that they are there. The local theater in my town is likely going to be killed off by this. The margins are paper thin as is; they are relying entirely on donor money that is going to dry up without shows for a year. Which also means nobody staying at the hotel or out of towners eating at the local restaurants. Now, of course crowd control of Disney is a good idea considering that as it is now you couldn't distance in any way if you lifted those limits, but those are questions that start getting more difficult the longer it drags out. If we are at Thanksgiving 2021 it gets more difficult for me to go along with laying off 50k people to continue failing at containing a virus. Lives do have a price, they always have, and there is a "throw your hands up" point where you realize we can't function at 8-10% unemployment when we aren't having any success containing the thing either. I'm still not following this. Are high COVID counts not the cause of the business failures? If COVID is contained then businesses can increase capacity. Restrictions are a result, not a cause. Loosening restrictions is just a matter of choosing economic winners and losers. How much money would the healthcare system lose in exchange for opening up Disneyland? How much money is Wisconsin athletics going to lose because they just (probably) lost their chance at the college football playoff due to COVID?

This is starting to make more sense to me as none of these 5 activities have seen an increase where I'm at in Washington State and COVID numbers have remained fairly steady. Schools never reopened here and bars are table seating only. I haven't really seen any change in behavior since we went to 'Phase 2' of reopening in June, which is where we still are at. We've had a couple weeks with bad weather so I don't think that's it either. I don't really understand the 'COVID restrictions kill businesses' thing as almost all businesses are allowed to be open under these restrictions.

My issue is not lockdown vs. no lockdown, it's basic mask+social distancing compliance. There really isn't much difference in official restrictions or weather between a state like Wisconsin (25% positivity rate) and other northern states that have 1.5-5% positivity rates (Massachusetts, Washington State, etc.).

That's really bad timing. No celebrating for him! Maybe he felt ill during the game and received a rapid test? So many questions, but regardless it seems like an unfortunate yet appropriate way for the 2020 baseball season to end. That and the loud booing of Manfred by the 11,000 fans. Quite the way for the season to go out. I'm already looking forward to April and hopefully being at a game in person again.

That's really bad timing. No celebrating for him!

I wonder how much of the “3rd time through the order” numbers changed when hitters lost access to in-game video. No matter what the numbers said, that was possibly the worst World Series managerial decision of all time.

The Badgers literally played their first game on the day with the highest number of COVID cases in the entire pandemic.

We'll see if this is a CFP-caliber defense or not, that's for sure.

We kind of knew that avoiding COVID was the key to winning college football this year. It's kind of a joke, I'm having trouble taking it seriously. Really wish they would have stuck with the plan to play in the spring.

Arizona still might win this

make it a 10-day contract (for reasons outlined here), and it's easier for the club to maintain organizational depth. Huh. I'd rather sign him in on August 31st and give him 100 high leverage ABs including a playoff spot. Can a 37 year old Braun stay healthy for 100 ABs? It doesn't seem like it.

I would like to see an Ichiro-style farewell. Sign Braun to a one-week contract and get him a couple of low leverage ABs in front of the fans. If he wants a longer farewell tour it would have to be for really cheap, as noted by others. Or play for someone else. Then he can do the above at the start of 2022.

Based on the way LA is playing it feels like Tampa is going to get smoked in this series. Dodgers in 5.

Maybe that story line will get to happen in a different year. Can you imagine that next year and the Astros travel to LA? Oh man...what a heated series, would have been a bit lame in this COVID year. The storylines might not be that good for the WS but the baseball will be really good. The Rays were the best team in the AL all year and the Dodgers/Braves are clearly the best two teams in the NL.

The eyes often deceive. Scoring first in game 7 was huge.

Yeah, same. Sucks. My in-laws don't want us to come. Sort of made the decision for us. Same. My parents said to stay away. I don't think I'm going to have many friends/family left in Wisconsin once this blows over, anyone with the means seems to be plotting their escape.

Watching the championship series has made me realize how bad the 2020 Brewers were. The 4 remaining teams are really good and fun to watch.

All you need to know about contact hitting is that Eric Sogard was literally the best contact hitter in MLB in 2020. I'm not making that up, he lead the league in in-zone contact percentage and was #2 in whiff %. Of course it's impossible to achieve both high exit velocity and high contact percentage (except for guys like Mookie Betts), hence the current dilemma. BTW Keston Hiura was bottom-5 in both of those categories, but he still managed to put up a .700 OPS.

No, the main reason is still selfishness and indifference. But your point is also problematic- people have no patience for a novel virus. They want to know exactly what to immediately, and they also have nothing but disdain and skepticism when that guidance changes as more is found out. Yes, exactly, thank you. One of the craziest things about this whole pandemic is how every single place in the world has different rules, 6+ months in it is quite obvious what works and what doesn’t, and yet nothing seems to be changing. You have situations like turbo which sounds completely miserable, meanwhile other places have entirely remote schools, no exceptions, and near perfect compliance with the rules. So much unnecessary suffering.

Really nice analysis--the plunge in BIPOE is really quite dramatic. I agree that it still potentially has a long way to go before reaching a new steady state. As much as I hate these trends, the shift to the pitcher vs. batter matchup as opposed to the pitcher vs. baserunner might be a bigger loss for the sport. If a walk or 1B had a higher chance of turning into a run (via stolen bases) it would make contact hitting + speed more valuable. Especially with shifting seemingly taking away some doubles lately--the lost art of the "Rickey Henderson double" (walk+SB) is a way to make a 3TO play more entertaining. Having speed guys on the bases also makes it more difficult for the infield to get away with dramatic shifts.