WicketMaiden

Excellent research @Angelsjunky. Good point, well made.

It's very good, @Tank, and very sad when one considers the lives lost over a such an avoidable series of events.

Escobar stats: 2019: 158 games; 35 HR; 111 OPS+; 2.9 fWAR 2021: 146 games; 28 HR; 109 OPS+; 2.6 fWAR 2022: 136 games; 20 HR; 107 OPS+; 2.3 fWAR That reads like a very solid player who is now on a slow decline. Not bad for a couple of depth arms and $250k. Nice job, Perry.

Who?

Reminded me of this.

Stars on Mars - low-level celebs in a Big Brother on Mars type scenario. Pluses: it has a great set. Minuses: everything else.

37 Days - One Month in Summer - a dramatisation of the events leading up to the first world war. This is very well made and very informative. A must see for anyone interested in how major conflicts begin, or in that particular time in history. Well worth your time.

...Butty

"The thing I appreciate and respect and like is the consistency the group goes about it. From the manager to the coaches, nobody gets too emotional. Nobody gets too high; nobody gets too low..." Chuckled at that. It is the polar opposite of a fan's perspective, where it's all about the highs, lows, and disproportionate emotions. Pretty much any game-day thread, on any sport website, will back that up. (I personally went through a large whisky, both thumbnails, and about three thousand steps of pacing whilst watching just an hour of cricket yesterday.)

Number 2 surely? A necktie sits at the base of the neck, not under the chin. Sheesh. Diplo-dumbus over there.

It is being reported over here that even if they find it, they won't be able to rescue it immediately. The small submersibles used to find the submarine haven't got the kit, they will have to arrange for another submersible to go down and grab it once it's been located. That will add several hours to any rescue attempt.

Great debut, @Swilly, that's a very nice piece of work. Cracking choice of subject too, Neto certainly looks like he belongs, and I'm sure there are plenty of us who are looking forward to watching him develop over the next few years. He's been a very pleasant surprise. Welcome, well done, and keep them coming.

Freezer *the best place to store your vodka.

Selective memory Hubs, my mind has pixelated the KC debacle so I can focus on the wins.

This is just fuckwittery. And very old fuckwittery, too.

They are about where I thought they'd be, now that they've recovered from that stretch of finding unusual ways to beat themselves and are now playing up to their talent level. More to come from Trout and maybe Walsh too. Fun times.

Just curious to see where the fan-base really stands on Nevin. (Moderators - please check Swordsman's IP for multiple votes. Thanks.)

She was just tidying up.

No, not necessarily. WAR is several counting stats that are built up over a period of time, it's an aggregate of a players actual impact on the game, not an assessment of value. So, a player who has 1.0 WAR after 100 games is having a lesser impact than another player who has 0.5 WAR in 20 games. It is a metric to measure a player's total actual impact on the games already played, but offers no projection of a player's value or future performance.

... and butter.

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) is judged against a replacement level player, so think of a AAAA type player, a guy that just about holds his own in the big leagues. A guy like that would likely score 0.0 WAR over the season. Several dozen stats, aggregated over several seasons, are used to calculate WAR. Here's a couple of links if you want to know more: https://www.baseball-reference.com/about/war_explained.shtml and https://library.fangraphs.com/misc/war/ All-Star calibre players are 4 - 6 WAR players over a 162 game season. MVP's are generally around 9 - 10 WAR, and there are usually only a handful of players in any year who are above 8 WAR. Trout has had several of them and is flying up the all-time leader-boards.

Channel Islands

Shohei Ohtani is the best in baseball and this season it's not even close. His 4.7 bWAR is a huge lead over Wander Franco with 3.9, and is tracking at 10.4 bWAR for the season. Fangraphs tells a similar tale, Shohei leads in fWAR with 4.4, another huge lead over Corbin Burnes with 3.4 (Franco T3 with 3.3 fWAR), and that is tracking at 9.8 fWAR for the season. He has been a little wild though, he also leads MLB in wild pitches (11) and hit batters (9). Trout is next on the Angels with 2.1 fWAR (tied for 18th in the AL), and 2.1 bWAR. Mickey Moniak is still tearing it up with 1.5 bWAR from just 23 games - that is tracking for 10.7 bWAR over a full season. Great stuff! Here's the rest, courtesy of baseball-reference.com... Full-Season Roster & Games by Position Glossary Name Age B T Ht Wt DoB Yrs G GS Batting Defense P C 1B 2B 3B SS LF CF RF OF DH PH PR WAR ▼ Salary Shohei Ohtani 28 jp JP L R 6' 4" 210 Jul 5, 1994 6 71 71 71 14 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 71 0 0 4.7 $30,000,000 Mike Trout 31 us US R R 6' 2" 235 Aug 7, 1991 13 68 67 68 65 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 65 0 65 2 1 0 2.1 $37,116,667 Zach Neto 22 us US R R 6' 0" 185 Jan 31, 2001 1st 55 52 55 55 0 0 0 0 0 55 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1.9 Carlos Estévez 30 do DO R R 6' 6" 277 Dec 28, 1992 7 31 0 0 31 31 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.5 $6,750,000 Mickey Moniak 25 us US L R 6' 2" 195 May 13, 1998 4 23 20 23 21 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 4 8 21 0 2 1 1.5 Matt Moore 34 us US L L 6' 3" 210 Jun 18, 1989 12 22 0 0 22 22 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.1 $7,550,000 Taylor Ward 29 us US R R 6' 1" 200 Dec 14, 1993 6 66 60 66 64 0 0 1 0 0 0 64 0 0 64 0 6 0 1.1 $2,750,000 Brandon Drury 30 us US R R 6' 2" 230 Aug 21, 1992 9 65 62 65 65 0 0 35 49 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1.0 $8,500,000 Jaime Barria 26 pa PA R R 6' 1" 210 Jul 18, 1996 6 15 4 0 15 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.9 $1,050,000 Chris Devenski 32 us US R R 6' 3" 211 Nov 13, 1990 8 20 0 0 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.9 $100,000 Matt Thaiss 28 us US L R 6' 0" 215 May 6, 1995 5 50 35 50 44 0 42 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 11 1 0.8 $740,000 Sam Bachman 23 us US R R 6' 1" 235 Sep 30, 1999 1st 7 0 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.7 Chad Wallach 31 us US R R 6' 2" 246 Nov 4, 1991 7 31 24 31 29 0 29 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 0 0.7 Griffin Canning 27 us US R R 6' 2" 180 May 11, 1996 4 11 11 0 11 11 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.6 $850,000 Logan O'Hoppe 23 us US R R 6' 2" 185 Feb 9, 2000 2 16 15 16 16 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.6 $730,000 Patrick Sandoval 26 us US L L 6' 3" 190 Oct 18, 1996 5 13 13 0 13 13 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.6 $2,750,000 Jacob Webb 29 us US R R 6' 2" 210 Aug 15, 1993 4 12 0 0 12 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.6 Gio Urshela 31 co CO R R 6' 0" 215 Oct 11, 1991 8 62 56 62 61 0 0 22 1 37 9 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0.5 $8,400,000 Andrew Wantz 27 us US R R 6' 4" 235 Oct 13, 1995 3 14 0 0 14 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.3 $740,000 Reid Detmers 23 us US L L 6' 2" 210 Jul 8, 1999 3 12 12 0 12 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.2 $740,000 Brett Phillips 29 us US L R 6' 0" 195 May 30, 1994 7 20 3 19 13 1 0 0 0 0 0 3 8 1 12 1 1 8 0.2 $1,200,000 Jo Adell 24 us US R R 6' 3" 215 Apr 8, 1999 4 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0.1 Jake Lamb 32 us US L R 6' 3" 215 Oct 9, 1990 10 19 14 18 17 1 0 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0.1 $100,000 Anthony Rendon 33 us US R R 6' 1" 200 Jun 6, 1990 11 38 38 38 38 0 0 0 0 38 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 $38,571,428 Hunter Renfroe 31 us US R R 6' 1" 230 Jan 28, 1992 8 65 62 65 65 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 65 65 0 3 0 0.1 $11,900,000 José Soriano 24 do DO R R 6' 3" 220 Oct 20, 1998 1st 7 0 0 7 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 Michael Stefanic 27 us US R R 5' 8" 180 Feb 24, 1996 2 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 Andrew Velazquez 28 us US B R 5' 9" 170 Jul 14, 1994 6 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 Ben Joyce 22 us US R R 6' 5" 225 Sep 17, 2000 1st 5 0 0 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 Reyes Moronta 30 do DO R R 5' 10" 265 Jan 6, 1993 6 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 Chris Okey 28 us US R R 5' 11" 200 Dec 29, 1994 2 2 1 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 Gerardo Reyes 30 mx MX R R 5' 11" 195 May 13, 1993 3 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 Austin Warren 27 us US R R 6' 0" 170 Feb 5, 1996 3 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 Zack Weiss 31 us US R R 6' 3" 210 Jun 16, 1992 3 2 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 Jimmy Herget 29 us US R R 6' 3" 170 Sep 9, 1993 5 15 0 0 15 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.1 Kolton Ingram 26 us US L L 5' 9" 170 Oct 21, 1996 1st 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.1 Luis Rengifo 26 ve VE B R 5' 10" 195 Feb 26, 1997 5 61 48 61 58 0 0 0 41 7 6 4 2 3 9 0 6 0 -0.1 $2,300,000 Livan Soto 23 ve VE L R 5' 10" 160 Jun 22, 2000 2 4 4 4 4 0 0 0 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.1 David Fletcher 29 us US R R 5' 9" 185 May 31, 1994 6 8 4 8 8 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 -0.2 $6,000,000 José Quijada 27 ve VE L L 5' 11" 215 Nov 9, 1995 5 10 0 0 10 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.3 $750,000 Chase Silseth 23 us US R R 6' 0" 217 May 18, 2000 2 9 1 0 9 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.3 Tucker Davidson 27 us US L L 6' 2" 215 Mar 25, 1996 4 14 0 0 14 14 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.4 $740,000 Aaron Loup 35 us US L L 5' 11" 210 Dec 19, 1987 12 20 0 0 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.4 $7,500,000 Tyler Anderson 33 us US L L 6' 2" 220 Dec 30, 1989 8 12 12 0 12 12 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.5 $13,000,000 Ryan Tepera 35 us US R R 6' 1" 195 Nov 3, 1987 9 10 0 0 10 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -0.6 $7,000,000 Jared Walsh 29 us US L L 6' 0" 210 Jul 30, 1993 5 25 16 25 24 0 0 24 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 -0.7 $2,650,000 José Suarez 25 ve VE L L 5' 10" 225 Jan 3, 1998 5 6 6 0 6 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 -1.0 $750,000

My father had an earlier version of the stereo stack - this bad boy below. It seemed so high-tech at the time with all those bouncing needles and switches to flick that my brother and I used to pretend they were the controls to our spaceship. Looking at it now I realise we had a pretty rubbish spaceship, but we loved it.

A Schrödinger dog would be doing both.