WicketMaiden

20 minutes ago, Jason said:

I’m just being real. Could they win? Sure but the talent just isn’t there and now the depth really comes into play. I am hoping Adell really seizes this opportunity now. 

Me too. A couple of XBH from him tonight would be very handy. He's always carried himself with a bit of arrogance, so a guy like that on a bit of a tear might be the spark the team needs to bridge to Trout's return. Just one good month from Adell here would be huge for our season.

1 hour ago, Revad said:

Why do I feel like it’s Ohtani vs. the Dodgers.

Shohei has just one hit (a HR) from his last 18 AB's (5 games). I really hope he was saving it all up for the Dodgers.

11 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

This is something of a semantic argument as “increased in line with inflation” is another way of saying stagnant. Meanwhile worker productivity has made incredible gains since the 1970s.

This isn’t exactly true as the investment component of home ownership isn’t included. This means the appreciation in your home value is largely missing.

Additionally while education is not a requirement, the return on education is not nearly what it used to be and the costs are significantly higher. 

Here is another fun chart.

All this shows is that older generations have more wealth than younger generations. Duh. Of course they do. And most of that wealth will filter down to Gen X when the Boomers die out, and then to the millenials after that.

Every generation thinks they have it harder than the one before, when in actual fact life gets easier all the time.

My parents are Boomers - they didn't spend any money on unnecessary things. They saved. They didn't use credit. They mended things and fixed things to save money. They didn't have a microwave, several TV's, several mobile phones and gym memberships etc, and they often worked two jobs. They went without things they wanted but didn't need. How much of that do Millenials do? Because I know Gen X didn't do much of it, we spent our money and had fun instead.

10 hours ago, Taylor said:

Sometimes I wonder if Boomers are missing the part of their brain that allows an individual to acknowledge and understand historical trends.

Sometimes I wonder if you have any capacity for critical thought at all.

I'm not a Boomer. Nowhere near.

A Town Called Malice: Crime drama

Settled down to watch this with fairly high hopes - set in the 1980's with a good soundtrack, in South London and southern Spain a crime family try to get back to the top. Nice idea, but the execution is so bad I'd almost recommend it just to see how bad it really is.

The script is so poor (and I'm being kind), the acting is awful, so wooden and forced, and I have no idea what the director was doing. Twenty minutes in to episode one I had to check to see whether it was meant to be a parody type of comedy. It's so bad it makes you laugh and it has a great soundtrack.

On 7/3/2023 at 9:03 PM, T.G. said:

Something funny occurred to me…

Some people view divorcing their team as some sort of mortal sin and yet, they’d divorce their spouse. Loyalty to a team seems stronger than some relationships and that’s just weird.

I think it's the same loyalty, our wives just have higher standards.

Our wives divorce us for looking at and visiting other women - our teams welcome us back no matter where we've been, who we've been with, or for how long.

Our wives divorce us for unreasonable behaviour and verbal abuse - our teams regularly allow us to verbally abuse them and don't really bat an eyelid to our unreasonable expectations, sulks, and venting.

We divorce our wives when they betray us with other men - we divorce our teams when they betray us and move to another city. (Sometimes.)

We don't divorce our wives because they're crap in the kitchen and burn dinner, or don't really have all the moves in bed, or have blown the family fun budget on yoga classes instead of paint-balling - we don't divorce our teams because they can't lay down a bunt and hit with RISP, or when they don't really have the moves out of the bull-pen, or when they've blown the budget on Wells, Pujols, Hamilton, rather than buying that nice shiny Beltre who would have been so much fun that Summer.

2 hours ago, Redondo said:

Cake

Cup of tea.

15 hours ago, AngelsLakersFan said:

You're not drawing the right conclusions from this chart. The point is wages have not increased since the mid 1970's when they reached their record highs. Now look at what has happened to the cost of housing and the cost of higher education since then. 

Wages have increased in line with inflation. Housing costs are included in that inflation calculation, as is energy, medical costs, food and several others.

Education isn't included because not everyone uses it.

So the point stands: you are just as well off as your counterparts in the 1970's, you haven't had your spending power diminished, as was claimed in the original post I replied to.

Booo!

Booooooo!

We saved you from Napoleon!

Booooooooooooooo!

*Numpty Notice: This is a joke... it's also true... but mostly it's a joke.

Oh, man, @Chuckster70, could we have a numpty emoji, please? I'd be wearing it out today, mate.

Is the sky falling in too?

Even if it's a broken bone, Trout will be swinging a bat again in the middle of August. A week of that absence will be for the All-star game; Moniak will cover half of Trout's missed games and he's doing pretty well; and Trout wasn't really himself this year at the plate: so how much of a loss is it really? One game lost? Two, three? Then add to that there is a fair chance that Trout comes back raking after his break and is fresh and revitalised at the plate.

And some of you want to trade the best bloody baseball player that has ever played the game? While he is having a career season? Performing at a level that has never been seen before?

Numpties.

4 hours ago, Don said:

 

I’d have to assume he’s kidding. Because we’re definitely #1 in guns per capita, with Yemen in second at less than half of us (they’re doing great btw). So unless everyone in Serbia with a gun also carries like two knives on them at all times (totally possible), and everyone in the US has given up on non-firearm weapons (we haven’t), I’d have to assume this can’t be true. 
 

Also, gonna be real pissed if I find out everyone in Tajikistan carries a crossbow and two swords on them as a matter of custom.

I wasn't kidding, I had bad information. Not afraid to admit when I get something wrong.

The US is miles ahead on guns per capita, but it's not so much the case with the percentage of households with firearms. Yes, the US is still no1 for that stat too, but only by a couple of percentage points. US is 42%, Finland 39%, Bosnia 35%, Switzerland 29%, Norway 26% and so on.

But the murder rate does not correlate: Murder rate per 100,000:

US - 8.5

Finland - 1.6

Bosnia - 1.3

Swiss - 0.5

Norway - 0.6

The USA is also 55th in the world for murder rate, yet no1 in the world for firearms per capita.

It's not the firearms, it's the people holding them.

*links to data (it is not exhaustive)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent_of_households_with_guns_by_country

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

1 hour ago, Taylor said:

Then why doesn't this happen in any other country?

Black on Black, white on Black, Black on Asian, white on Asian, Dodger fan on Giants fan ... all gun violence is a problem, no matter where it occurs.

This is an interesting question and one that I have pondered and investigated. It isn't about the guns. Many other countries have more weapons per capita but a far lower murder rate. It is something else.

Culture? You have a strong culture of the individual, most other countries have more of a community focus. In Europe we have free health care and state pensions and state owned utilities in some places too, and we love it. We have an attitude that we are all in it together, whereas in the US you have more of an attitude that everything is down to you as an individual. This naturally breeds discontent among you in the US, and breeds social harmony in Europe.

Depression Medication? RFK Jr has some fantastic research showing the prevalence of SSRI's being taken by the people involved in these shootings. The US has an enormous problem with it - interesting article on SSRI's and other meds in the US here: https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2021/11/07/americas-epidemic-of-antidepressants/

I don't know what the answer is, but I do think those are two very relevant factors in your comparatively extreme levels of person to person violence.

Honestly @Taylor, I think you were born in the wrong country.

51 minutes ago, Taylor said:

The indisputable fact of the matter is that inflation has increased at an exponentially higher rate than average wage in the U.S. since the Baby Boom period. A 19-year-old making an entry level salary could have afforded a home in 1970.

This data does dispute your indisputable 'fact'. It shows that the value of real wages has been steady since 1973 and has not diminished as you contend, and the actual real value of wages since the 1960's has risen.

24 minutes ago, Trendon said:

That gives you some hope it’ll even out and there will be positive regression.

The worrying aspects are the walks and strikeouts in high leverage situations. Facing some high class relievers in some of those  situations won't help, but even so, he walks a third as much and strikes out twice as much when you compare his high and low leverage situations.

It reads to me like he is doing something different in clutch situations, but he is also having some terrible luck with that .125 BABIP.

The Idol: HBO

This was panned by critics and viewers alike, and I think unjustly. It covers some dark subjects in between all the beautiful, almost naked, people on view. Odd that they made in 5 episodes instead of the original 6, but it still ends in an OK place.

Lily-Rose Depp is stunning in the lead role.

1 hour ago, Taylor said:

Get over yourself dude. Your generation was given a big ladder, and then you pulled up the ladder and expect the younger generations to build their own, pretending like you weren't the beneficiary of socialism (the New Deal). 

That's funny. You should ask for a refund from your college. 'The New Deal' was part of US economic policy from 1933 to 1939, so I very much doubt anyone on this board benefited from that.

26 minutes ago, Trendon said:

It plays some factor in why his numbers are worse this season, but I don't think it explains why he has struggled so much with RISP and in high leverage spots.

His BABIP with RISP is even worse:

20 minutes ago, Trendon said:

I found something interesting about Taylor Ward, which I think explains why many people have been frustrated with him despite him having above-average numbers the last month:

Ward ranks dead last in MLB in WPA (Win Probability Added) at -2.34.

For those unfamiliar with WPA, here's a summary from FanGraphs: "Win Probability Added (WPA) captures the change in Win Expectancy from one plate appearance to the next and credits or debits the player based on how much their action increased their team’s odds of winning." https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/wpa/

 

So why is this the case?

Bases Empty: .745 OPS; Men on Base: .594 OPS; RISP: .434 OPS

Low Leverage: .857 OPS; Med Leverage: .619 OPS; High Leverage: .188 OPS

 

I went back and looked, and Ward actually had a higher OPS with RISP than the bases empty or men on base in 2022. So I'm not sure why the results are different this season. Is it sequencing/bad luck?

Or does his poor approach with RISP have something to do with it?

 

From the OC Register last month:

Count Angels outfielder Taylor Ward among those who believe a hitter shouldn’t do anything different with a runner in scoring position.

“I think the worst thing you can do is have a different approach or thought process,” Ward said. “When you realize there’s runners in scoring position, I think that puts added pressure on you and that thought isn’t good.”

https://www.ocregister.com/2023/06/05/angels-expect-anthony-rendons-return-to-boost-performance-with-runners-in-scoring-position/

 

Interesting.

Luck could also be a factor here: this year Ward has a .276 BABIP (batting avg on balls in play), which is 49 points below last year (.325) and 30 points below the MLB average (.305).

1 hour ago, Chuckster70 said:

Can someone explain to @cals what the rules are for this Word Association Game? He wants me to tell him, but since this is ya'lls thread can you set the rules for him?

I'm guessing try not being controversial, political, sexually provocative or a dick and you'll be just fine like in any thread. 

There aren't any rules, per se, but an expectation of at least a modicum of maturity, most of the time. Constantly making penis references is just tedious, and has been since childhood. Cals seemed to mention them so often for a while that I actually started to think he was in the closet and was banging on the door to 'come out'.

5 hours ago, NrM said:

A better question would be will you still be here when Ohtani leaves.

Not much reason to watch outside of Trout. 

Maybe you haven't been paying attention this year. Neto, O'Hoppe, Moniak, Estevez, even the revitalised Thaiss have been great fun to watch this year, and they will all likely be better players next year.

Plenty of reasons to watch this Angels team outside of Trout and Ohtani.

1 hour ago, REDneck said:

Show yourself. No shame.

A lot of baseball left, the whole second half of the season. I'm not impressed, but maybe you are?

Make a case.

 

I'm an Angels fan so I won't be going anywhere, for good or bad.

18 minutes ago, fan_since79 said:

I think he acquired Rendon because he thought he would be the same player, or close to it, that raked in 2019. He didn't expect him to be injured so often. 

Nobody did. Before he came to the Halos, Rendon averaged 146 games per season during the prior four years in Washington. We broke him.

For the first time in years I'm genuinely interested to see what Perry does at the trade deadline. I'm hoping for good things.

3 hours ago, Don said:

The drama has continued to be sure. I followed @WicketMaiden’s advice, which immediately led to them paying all of my past due OT. From there they reduced my salary to what I made hourly x40 hours per week, which still represented a loss to me, so I complained some more. They eventually found that I should have had an annual review in October of last year (I didn’t), so they did it now. Got a 7% raise in base salary, which still leaves me making less in 2023 than I did in 2022. Quite bluntly told them that my number one priority now is finding another job.

After all that, my direct real work superior got our VP involved, and we had a nice conversation two weeks ago. Our company has grown a lot in recent years, and I’m one of the longest-tenured employees, so the VP and I know eachother a bit. Explained my situation to him, and he seemed receptive, but tentative.

It’s a bit shocking to me that they’re still fighting me over roughly 8k a year, when I’m in a position where my judgment calls regularly save them five or six figures in a given week. Like if I leave they’re nearly certain to make a few hundred k in “mistakes” because nobody is there to make sure that the plans that happen in the field on the fly make sense in the larger scope of things. Kind of a cutting off their nose to spite their face situation.

I'm glad you got your owed earnings back @Don, shame they're still trying to penny-pinch but that's the corporate world these days. It's just business, if they won't pay your true value, find someone that will. I have occasionally regretted joining a particular company, but I have never regretted leaving one. Once I feel that a certain level of trust or fairness has been breached, I'm out of there.