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ashbury

By ashbury
in Other Baseball

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nicksaviking All-Star

nicksaviking

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  On 11/13/2018 at 7:34 PM, ashburyjohn said:

I was completely pulling RB's chain. Even if something is no longer a market inefficiency, you still may need to do it, lest you fall behind and become an inefficient dinosaur yourself.

 

I get it, I'd still continue to look for market inefficiencies even if the current trends are still plausible. Even if the inefficiency isn't the most viable option now, it'd be nice to have in your back pocket for later. 

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ashbury Cooperstown

ashbury

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  On 11/13/2018 at 5:40 PM, birdwatcher said:

Okay, so a not-so-quick story about specialized evolution and "positional flexibility".

 

I'm birding up north with one of my nerdiest birding friends (redundant, I know). We spot a flock of red crossbills, who, as their name suggests, have crossed mandibles which they use as a tool to extract seeds from the hard outer shells of pine cones. In the territory we were in the most common food targets were white pines and western hemlock, although other coniferous species are found. My nerd friend tells me he heard a flight call that indicates another "type" of red crossbill, and he thinks it's a type 5 perhaps. I let it go, just like I forgave the first ridiculous baseball nerd who introduced the term LOOGY to me.

 

I get home, still naggingly curious, and read up to find that the bird nerds are now actively talking about, like, ELEVEN different types of red crossbills, all with distinct enough flight calls and eating habits to be identified, which really ticks me off, because I was pretty dang proud of knowing MY crossbill and the two from the west and east with flight accents I could identify. Red crossbill types are otherwise pretty much indistinguishable, kinda like starters and primary pitcher types. I want to reject all this new stuff. And then I read about the new and improved Cassian Crossbill, which can only be found in two frickin' counties in southern Idaho and only eats Lodgepole Pine seeds, which most other crossbill types ignore like the Baltimore Orioles ignore shifts and stuff.

 

My visceral attraction to flocks of red crossbills has diminished and I very much fear my newfound attraction to the simpler sport of curling.

I saw a robin in my back yard yesterday. It was pretty.

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biggentleben GCL Twins

biggentleben

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  On 11/13/2018 at 3:49 PM, Monkeypaws said:

Gotta hand it to the Yankees - ROY last year in Judge, and 2nd and 3rd place this year in Torres and Andujar. Got their homegrown ace in Severino. They do a nice job of developing players: Sanchez, Betances, Holder, etc.

 

Their trade record is also pretty good. There's more than just deep pockets in the Bronx.

 

Neither player was top 3 for me on my ballot, but still impressive. I don't know what they do with Andujar. He makes Sano look like a Gold Glover at 3B.

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Riverbrian Cooperstown

Riverbrian

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  On 11/13/2018 at 5:44 PM, nicksaviking said:

I think that's fairly easy in this case. If everyone else wants flexible players and you can't get them to come here, turn your own guys into flexible players or trade for guys who can do so but no one has tried yet.

 

Bingo

 

Necessity is the mother of invention. 

 

Trying to lure professionals to North Dakota is harder than you can imagine.

 

I'd be on the phone talking with some unemployed talented professional from Charlotte, North Carolina and offering him a job that pays decently and certainly a lot more than the nothing he is making now and he just wouldn't come to North Dakota.  

 

Other times I would hire someone from San Diego, watch them move all their stuff to North Dakota in August and then watch them move all their stuff back to San Diego without a job in November because the temperature got down below 10 degrees for a week. 

 

Meanwhile, the need was still there so we had to create our own. Hire someone without experience, train them and give them the experience to see what they blossom into. 

 

It didn't take long to discover, that building your own easily produced better results and longer term employees. Some didn't work out but most did and a handful ended up advancing farther than I ever did. 

 

If you can't find it... Build your own!!!  

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Riverbrian Cooperstown

Riverbrian

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  On 11/13/2018 at 7:34 PM, ashburyjohn said:

I was completely pulling RB's chain. Even if something is no longer a market inefficiency, you still may need to do it, lest you fall behind and become an inefficient dinosaur yourself.

 

I have a chain? 

 

It's right though... If everyone was doing it... you'd have to start looking elsewhere for the next competitive advantage. This could even mean reverting back to what you moved away from. 

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bird College Ball

bird

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  On 11/13/2018 at 9:34 PM, Monkeypaws said:

I had a mutant Robin nest in my back yard this year that had a white head - looked like a mini bald eagle.

 

 

"Arvid!! Arvid!! Git yerselff down here to th' barn quick-like. Liks t' me like that Bald Eagle and that Robin been speciatin'!!"

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TheLeviathan All-Star

TheLeviathan

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  On 11/15/2018 at 6:54 PM, spycake said:

"MLB, Fox Sports Reach Reported $5.1 Billion Rights Agreement"

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2018/11/mlb-fox-sports-reach-reported-5-1-billion-rights-agreement.html

Apparently a 36% annual increase over the previous deal.

 

Good for baseball, I wonder how many of these kinds of payouts will exist for any sports as the years go on.  There is an increase in cord-cutting and streaming, yet more sports centered channels are competing for rights.  

 

I have to imagine at some point these media deals collapse for everyone but the NFL.  

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nicksaviking All-Star

nicksaviking

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The Padres are trying to trade for Noah Syndergaard it seems. Most people don't think he's actually available, but if he is, well, go get him Twins?

 

I know the hindsight game is always eye-rolling, but this is a fun one. It used to be a bit of a joke that the Twins had R.A. Dickey, liked him and loved his knuckleball, but couldn't find room to roster him, only for the Mets to hit the jackpot with him the next year. The epilogue to that old anecdote was that the Mets then flipped him for Syndergaard. Oh what could have been! eyeroll

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nicksaviking All-Star

nicksaviking

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  On 11/16/2018 at 6:49 PM, Vanimal46 said:

The Padres have a loaded farm system with higher FV players than the Twins. Makes sense for the Mets to listen to the Padres' offer.

 

Yeah, if anyone can get him it's the Padres.

 

But it seems like a bit of an odd strategy to me. They play in a ballpark where wholly underwhelming swing-men like Tyson Ross, Trevor Cahill, Drew Pomeranz, Andrew Cashner, Ian Kennedy and Clayton Richard magically turn their careers around. That organization's problem has always been that they can't find enough reliable offense, and it's been that way since that stadium was built. If I was SD I'd be selling out for some bats.

 

Or, possibly the cheaper route, renovate the stadium to make it more hitter friendly. Again.

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cmoss84 Draft Eligible

cmoss84

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  On 11/16/2018 at 7:07 PM, nicksaviking said:

Yeah, if anyone can get him it's the Padres.

 

But it seems like a bit of an odd strategy to me. They play in a ballpark where wholly underwhelming swing-men like Tyson Ross, Trevor Cahill, Drew Pomeranz, Andrew Cashner, Ian Kennedy and Clayton Richard magically turn their careers around. That organization's problem has always been that they can't find enough reliable offense, and it's been that way since that stadium was built. If I was SD I'd be selling out for some bats.

 

Or, possibly the cheaper route, renovate the stadium to make it more hitter friendly. Again.

Agreed-they need bats.

 

I'm waiting for them to empty out their farm system to trade for Trout, if he's willing to sign an extension (which might be $400 million).

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Vanimal46 MVP

Vanimal46

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  On 11/16/2018 at 7:07 PM, nicksaviking said:

Yeah, if anyone can get him it's the Padres.

 

But it seems like a bit of an odd strategy to me. They play in a ballpark where wholly underwhelming swing-men like Tyson Ross, Trevor Cahill, Drew Pomeranz, Andrew Cashner, Ian Kennedy and Clayton Richard magically turn their careers around. That organization's problem has always been that they can't find enough reliable offense, and it's been that way since that stadium was built. If I was SD I'd be selling out for some bats.

 

Or, possibly the cheaper route, renovate the stadium to make it more hitter friendly. Again.

For sure. But if they magically make the playoffs they will need an ace regardless. All of those pitchers would get demolished in a playoff series outside of SD.

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PseudoSABR Cedar Rapids Kernels

PseudoSABR

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  On 11/19/2018 at 10:38 PM, Vanimal46 said:

Passan Bomb! So much for Paxton coming here....



Justus Sheffield supposedly is the headliner. Other info to come.

Would have been an interesting target for the Twins with two years left of control.  Let's see how steep the full package is, because just Sheffield and fodder sounds like a price the Twins could have topped.

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