Quote of the day

This comes once again from the incomparable Craig Calcaterra and his Cup of Coffee newsletter:

A Cybertruck caught on fire after crashing in Texas. Which, given that it crashed into a fire hydrant and was soaked in water is a hell of a thing. Best part: it did so “between Sam’s Club and Bass Pro Shop off Spur 54 and Bass Pro Drive.” I have decided that this whole story is The Official Metaphor of 2024.

No argument here.

Tagged Craig Calcaterra   |   Posted on August 30, 2024 at 4:06am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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TV time and other stray thoughts

Did you know there was more Resident Alien? There is!

Last night I was umpiring playoff games, which was a reminder that we're nearing the end of 2023’s softball action for umpiring (softball action as a player ended for the year several weeks back). As the staggered-schedule late-summer leagues wrap up, there are fewer of them to go around for us umps and the last one standing will end in just a few more weeks. With luck, the remainder of my season will follow the pattern of last night, which featured many of my favorite players/teams to work with and was a fun time. It may have been a first, a shift of 3 or more games in which every game had at least two faves in it. Those are the good nights. No troubles. Or rather, even if there are troubles, they're minor and nobody raises a stink if I have to do something unconventional to make up for missing something on the field, as was the case with a weird multiple-baserunner play yesterday. Attitude is everything for umpires at this level of rec league, we're not invested in who wins (well, we're not supposed to be, anyway) we just want everyone to have a good time and to not be yelled at or belittled if we screw up a call. (And especially not when we didn't screw up a call but a player thinks we did. Those are the worst.)

Anyway, this is not an umpiring post but one about how I'm going to have a lot more free evenings going forward. Some of which will be occupied with a resumption of nerd nights here with fellow Trek geeks a couple times a month reliving the awesomeness that is Deep Space Nine, but also with new entries in our golden age of television. Such as:

• Resident Alien. While listening to a political podcast today, I heard mention of the renewal of the great Alan Tudyk show for a fourth season. All right! I thought. Quickly followed by, wait there was a third season already? How did I miss that? Turns out, yeah, the third season premiered earlier this year on a cable network, thus I completely missed it (my days as a cable subscriber have been over for a while). But knowing it exists, I will find it. If you've not seen it, the first two seasons are on Netflix. Check it out.
• Orphan Black: Echoes. The original Orphan Black series was awesome, with Tatiana Maslany expertly playing multiple roles as a woman discovers she's one of many clones and joins up with some of them to solve the mystery of their existence. This is a sequel centering on the daughter of one of the Tatiana Maslany clones, now an adult played by Krysten Ritter (who will always be Jessica Jones to me). I didn't know this even existed, but since the original was so great I will now look it up on whatever platform I can find it on. Apparently it's not a critical hit, but that isn't going to dissuade me.
• Quantum Leap. The first season of the sequel/reboot show on NBC was pretty good, but I was assuming it would be canceled, because networks tend to cancel their good genre shows before they find an audience. (Still upset about Defying Gravity? Yeah, kinda. That show would have been a big hit as a streaming show today.) But no, it got renewed and will be back in a month or so!
• Sunny (サニー). Nearing the end of its first season on Apple TV, this show appeals to me as a sci-fi show set in a near-future with "homebots" and as a show set in Japan with a fair amount of Japanese spoken. Also it stars Rashida Jones, who is always great, and a woman who goes by "Annie the Clumsy," whom I'd never heard of before but who is both funny and super-cute.
• Only Murders in the Building is back. Always fun.
• Leverage: Redemption. Again, how did I miss that this had another season? Well, it did, and I will be watching it. Moving platforms probably didn't help in terms of my missing it. It's getting a season three, too, which is cool even though it'll be on Amazon. &@%$in' Amazon.

I'll have to wait a while for Lower Decks season 5, Silo season 2, Severance season 2, The Diplomat season 2, Good Omens season 3, Outlander season 7B, and For All Mankind season 5, but those are on the way too. It's a good time to be a couch potato. Assuming you also get some exercise, of course.

Tagged TV, Umping   |   Posted on August 29, 2024 at 8:24pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Random dispatches

Some stray thoughts as I procrastinate doing important(ish) stuff this afternoon...

• I had umpiring to do last night, and as I arrived at the Woodland Park ballfields I was approached by one of my favorite players to ump over the years, a guy named Stephen. His team wasn't on my schedule, they were set to play on the adjacent field that my fellow umpire was handling, but he saw me deliver a gear bag to her and came up to talk to me. A few years back, Stephen was involved in (but by no means instigated) a confrontation between players on opposing teams in a game I was officiating, and after I'd sent combatants back to their corners and resumed the game, Stephen apologized to me and owned his (minor) part in what could have been an escalation of hostilities if I'd not intervened. That impressed me since he was basically the injured party and had cause to be upset. Since that game, whenever Stephen's team and I crossed paths it made my shifts a little more fun/less stressful since I knew at least one team would be well-behaved and good-humored. Anyway, last night Stephen said, "Hey, I'm glad you're here. This is my last game and I'm moving to New York next week. It's been a lot of fun playing in the league these past years and whenever we had you for our ump you made it that much better. The team loves you. Just wanted to you to know." After his game was over we chatted a little more about what he planned to do in NYC and he reiterated his praise. I say this not to toot my own horn—OK, it's partly to toot my own horn, I do enjoy my reputation, as one fellow staff member put it, as "the Ken Griffey Jr. of umpires" in the league—but to say to the Internet masses here that, if there's someone in your associative circle you appreciate for whatever reason, let them know. Odds are they aren't getting such feedback from their boss or co-workers or whomever else that might have authority, odds are they hear negative feedback far more frequently, and it can be more than helpful to know someone appreciates their effort in doing whatever it is they do. For my part, knowing Stephen and a few others appreciate how I run a game makes it a lot more tolerable when other people insult me or otherwise make an umping shift unpleasant. I'll miss Stephen! Thankfully I still have Megan, Yoon, Dae, Frankie, Robin, and everyone on The Leftovers (among others) occasionally peppering my shifts with good cheer. 
• My new car is already in the shop, though this was half-planned. I knew from the inspection I had done it needed a couple of things dealt with right away, and that was supposed to be all handled this afternoon. Unfortunately there was a parts snafu and the mechanics can't finish until tomorrow. So I'll be relying on Ye Olde Metro Transit for getting to tonight's Mariner game and back. Alas.
• Speaking of the Mariners, despite their current second-place standing behind the Houston Astros in the American League West and third behind Minnesota and Boston for the consolation-prize Wild Card position, I'm more bullish on their postseason possibility than at any point since maybe May, and they had a big lead then. All because they finally sent Scott Servais and Jarret DeHart packing. Since Dan Wilson took over last Friday, with Edgar Martinez at his side, the M's are 3-1 (against San Francisco and Tampa Bay) and have gained 1½ games on the Astros, and of those three wins I am utterly convinced that they would have lost at least two of them under the Servais regime because critical runs were scored by runners from third without benefit of a hit. Which had been a foreign concept under DeHart. Edgar made a point of telling the press that one of his goals was to emphasize situational hitting and another was to reduce strikeouts, and it paid off immediately. Even the San Francisco Giants' broadcast team noticed, as they remarked over the weekend that Seattle batters were changing their approach when they had two strikes on them, noting some guys choking up on the bat to shorten their swing and what appeared to be deliberate intent to foul off certain pitches. Shortstop Leo Rivas delivered a game-winning hit in such an at-bat on Friday. Sunday two runs scored on grounders that Julio Rodriguez and Randy Arozarena busted hard out of the box on to avoid double-plays. None of that would have happened before. Yesterday the M's beat Tampa Bay with home runs, more like the earlier regime preached, but they were "happenstance homers," not borne of swinging for the fences but of swinging for a line-drive. Josh Rojas and Luke Raley seem particularly better since the regime change; Wilson even had Rojas in the starting lineup against a lefty yesterday, something Servais never did, and what do you know, Josh was 2-for-3 against said lefty, a line single, a hard double off the wall, and lined hard just barely foul before striking out on a tough pitch. Plus he stole a base and scored the only non-homer-delivered run of the game. There have been bunts and bunt attempts in interesting situations by batters other than Luke Raley. Andres Muñoz was not called in too early from the bullpen in a close game. Surprisingly good reliever Collin "Principal" Snider was not yanked after getting in a spot of trouble but was allowed to get out of it himself. Dan is still batting Cal Raleigh third in the order, which I don't like, but it's only been four games and Victor Robles hasn't been available to lead off. We'll see if that changes soon.
• Shit, I've procrastinated too long. Gotta go.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners, Umping, Cars   |   Posted on August 27, 2024 at 4:44pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Good news, everyone!

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, dude

It's been a pretty great week in the news, largely because of the absolute delight that has been the Democratic National Convention. So many standout speeches and fantastic energy that I could write long posts about and maybe will.

But not today. Because the best news from today (so far) comes from Your Seattle Mariners. The headline:

Mariners fire manager Scott Servais amid AL West slide

To quote my friend Mack, whose reaction was much like mine only slightly sanitized, "AMFT." (The A stands for "about," the T for "time," and the middle letters for a descriptor Samuel L. Jackson uses for snakes and planes.)

You may recall my posts about how the Mariners have been wildly inconsistent this year, or how they were pathetic as a club because batters having trouble had no support from their own dugout/clubhouse and had to seek help elsewhere. Or how the Mariners absolutely suck at driving in runners from third base, generally at worst a 50/50 proposition but with them 40% is a reach.

You may also recall my stance from a couple years back that the only reason the Mariners could possibly get into the postseason going forward is because we now live in the Manfred Era of participation-trophy-level playoffs and roster rules designed to protect managers from their own dumbness, and even then if the M's were to get in they wouldn't last long. And that would hold true until significant changes were made in management.

Well, someone with the power to do something about it finally reached the same conclusion.

Also canned, just as importantly, was alleged hitting coach Jarret DeHart, a primary figure in a couple of the posts linked above and a clear liability to the team.

The firings come at the conclusion of a road trip that saw the M's lose eight of nine games and fall from a first-place tie to five games behind the Houston Astros in the division. Going back a bit farther, since June 18th—when the M's held a 10-game lead over the Astros—Seattle has a winning percentage of just .377 (20-33), including 18 losses by two or fewer runs and 16 losses when their starting pitcher turned in a quality start (6+ innings with <=3 earned runs allowed). And over those 53 games, the Mariners' offense has managed to post a batting line of .208/.300/.354 with an average of 10½ strikeouts per game. For the non-baseball stat nerds, that's bad.

The frustrating thing is that none of this is new. This has been standard operating procedure for the Mariners for four years, and for longer than that no matter how good the roster of personnel was the lineup underachieved. It's astonishing that the team won 88 or more games in four of Servais' nine years at the helm, and all of the credit for that goes to the pitchers. Even there, Servais had issues—he had such a tendency to call on the worst possible option from the bullpen that I actually believe that certain relievers were traded just so Servais wouldn't keep bringing them into critical game situations (looking at you, Dan Altavilla, Ryne Stanek, Rafael Montero, Taylor Williams, et.al). Those unlikely win totals masked what I always thought were Servais' flaws and probably kept him around despite what should have been obvious reasons not to. In addition to the weird bullpen decisions there was the insistence on a three-man bench (before Manfred's reign mandated at least four), odd lineup constructions, and basic inflexibility when it came to deviating from pregame decisions regardless of what happened on the field.

Hopefully this will be a "better late than never" situation rather than one of "too little too late." The M's are still just five games out thanks to Houston's terrible start to the season. It's not likely that they can catch the Astros, but nor is it all that unlikely with five and a half weeks to go in the season (including three games in Houston).

The new manager will be Dan Wilson, former Seattle catcher and a guy who always struck me as possible manager material. He's had no coaching experience other than as a roving minor-league instructor for the M's here and there, but there have been successful big-league managers that came in cold—Craig Counsell, for one, who took Milwaukee to the postseason five times in eight years; also Aaron Boone, though when your first gig is the Yankees you're already a step up. Of course there's also David Ross and Gabe Kapler, who didn't fare so well. 

No word yet on a new batting coach. That might be important. If the M's just go with DeHart's assistant for the rest of the year I doubt much will improve, but just being without DeHart should help. The rumor mill has Edgar Martínez returning to coach in some capacity. We'll see.

I've got tickets for next Tuesday night. Who wants to go?

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners   |   Posted on August 22, 2024 at 5:40pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Tales from the ballfield

The workplace, more often than not these days

During my umpiring shift tonight, one of the teams playing was The Leftovers, one of my favorites to call games for (hi, Neal!). Unfortunately, they were on the adjacent field from me and I got stuck with other teams this time while fellow ump Ian got to do their game. Still, I had a fairly good group to work with on my field and things were mostly fine.

But I did have The Leftovers last week, and one of the fun things about them is that they record all their games and often do goofy things with the video. Last week's video didn't include any of the goofy stuff, but it did capture an argument between me and two players from the opposition team, the not-so-cleverly-named Blue Ballers, over a bang-bang call at home plate. (It may be useful to know that the Blue Baller pitcher had been getting on my nerves for a good while before this happened with snide remarks about ball/strike calls.) Usually when someone bitches at me about a call I can say, hey, it's not like we have video replay here. And that's true even when Neal and co. are recording, because I can't exactly ruin their video setup to check it. But, it does mean there's video to review after the fact. And in this case, I can definitively say that the call was...made. Was it right? Wrong? Even with video, I can't tell. Which is good, because it means the arguing players, who claimed (a) the call was made before the runner had reached home plate, and (b) that the runner never stepped on the plate, were both full of shit. Either way, I did a better job than C.B. Bucknor does on any given day, so stick it, Blue Ballers.

 

 

Nothing so dramatic tonight, just some embarrassment for me as I reverse-Denkingered a call at first base. I knew it right away, too, but I let it pass because the team it was against was leading by a ton of runs and I knew it wasn't going to matter. Except the other team started to come back. When they got within five I was nervous. Fortunately for me, their lead blew open again in the final inning and my botched call mattered not. Whew!

Tagged Umping, Softball, CB Bucknor, Don Denkinger   |   Posted on August 22, 2024 at 12:46am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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I'm bad at haggling

Yesterday I had the inspection done on the ’07 Prius. It was done by the very fine mechanics at Everybody's Auto Service, who are awesome and whom I heartily recommend (unlike the people at Bucky's Shoreline; I'm 85% sure they ripped me off last winter when fixing my Subaru's exhaust system). They found a few routine things and two big red marks on the inspection checklist, including the critical component of a Prius, the hybrid battery.

The car had been presented to me by the used car dealership as having had its hybrid battery replaced with a new one in 2021 and thus had years of life left in it. That was one of its main appeals over other cars I had been considering, and finding out it's actually either still the original battery from 2006 or just as bad as that is a deal-breaker. The car also has some suspension issues that are less critical but should be addressed sometime.

Anyway, the Everybody's guys quoted me a very good price for parts and labor, but still nearly $3,000 to remedy these problems. So I had to decide whether to keep the car or exercise my option to return it and reclaim my Subaru while I still could. But I decided to try a middle ground first and see if the seller would kick in for the repairs.

That is what happened in the end, but not before I gave myself a fair amount of unnecessary stress and anxiety.

As I said before, I have very little experience with the subspecies of humans known as car salesmen. But I know their reputation, and as much as I would like to discard any prejudicial thinking, it was there and being reinforced; I resented having been pressured into buying the car before an inspection and was irked about the misrepresentation of a new battery and was thus casting aspersions in my head on the men who sold me the car.

But I still wanted to get this whole transaction completed in a satisfactory way, so I thought about how to approach the dealer about covering repair costs. I called the dealership and left a message that the inspection wasn't satisfactory and we could negotiate further or I would negate the deal, then waited for them to respond. Meanwhile, I was arguing both sides in my head—I want this, they would counter with, well, that isn't really our responsibility; I'd say, you would have to do these repairs if I returned the car anyway, and you do want my Subaru, right? They'd say, well, we'll cover the suspension repair, the rest is usual expectations; I'd insist the hybrid battery is critical and they promised it was new, they'd say it wasn't us that promised anything of the kind, the notation of battery replacement was from before we took possession. This went on and on in my head.

I reached a conclusion—totally one-sided, mind you, with no input whatsoever from the dealer—that I could probably get them to pay for parts and beyond that would involve a tense back-and-forth that would ultimately depend on how badly they wanted the Subaru.

They didn't get back to me until around noon today, so my subconscious continued to plague me as I slept. I had dreams about telling off car dealers, about having to steal back the Subaru because they wouldn't honor their opt-out guarantee, about an endless feud of pettiness between me and the city of Monroe, where the dealership is. This was my state of mind when I heard back from them.

The actual conversation with the dealership went like this:

Me: "The inspection turned up $3,000 worth of repairs, I would not have agreed to the contract had I been made aware of these issues."

Car salesman: "I understand, that's why we offered you the opt-out."

Me: "If you guys would kick in for a good percentage of the repairs, we can call the deal sealed, otherwise I'll be back to see you in an hour to reclaim my Subaru."

Salesman: "Well, what would you want from us, what do you think is fair?"

Me (somewhat indignantly): "That you pay for replacement parts, that's about half the estimate from my mechanic."

Salesman: "OK, we can do that. We'll cut you a check."

So, I learned nothing from the trade-in conversation on Friday, when I clearly had the leverage and lowballed myself asking for just $100 more than their increased offer. I still don't think they'd have agreed to pay the whole $3k, but I might have been able to get $2k out of them? Ultimately, I'll get $1,350, which is the cost of parts, exactly what I asked them for based on nothing more than my inexperienced and uninformed self-arguments.

I'm not sure if this is a failing or not, really. I mean, I realize that negotiation strategy says to start by asking for more than you think you'll get and trade figures downward until you reach unacceptable levels, but that goes against the grain for me, especially when I'm at the contextual disadvantage. So I was straightforward in asking for what I thought was the minimally fair result in both cases (trade-in and repair), intending to end it right there if it wasn't agreed to; the other party is under no obligation of any sort to tell me if my interpretation of fair was lower than theirs. So do I think of it as integrity or playing myself for a sucker?

Right now I fee like it's both.

But ultimately I have the car. It will, after repair, have cost me an amount only slightly outside the budget I'd given myself. I still have to get the repairs done, which I have a request out to Everybody's to schedule. After that I can move on. Literally, and using less than half the gasoline as before.

Tagged Cars, Money   |   Posted on August 20, 2024 at 6:03pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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I bought a car

I bought a car yesterday. I hadn't really intended to. I mean, I fully intended to at some point before the year was out, I just wasn't planning on doing it yesterday.

I'd been half-heartedly looking at car sites online and budgeting things in my head for a while—first after spending $3,500 on repairs to my previous car in February and then with a little more seriousness when I got a warning light on my dash some weeks ago that promised more expense to come a few months down the line—but yesterday's visit to a dealership to check out a particular listing was, I expected, just going to be a test drive and some experience with car salesmen to build upon when I'm really ready to go later on.

I think it's that lack of experience with car dealers that ultimately had me signing papers, and I'm not altogether sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I got a good deal on the car; all told, out the door including fees, taxes, and the trade-in of my prior 25-year-old jalopy, I got a 2007 Prius with 120k miles on it and a really good 1-owner service history for $8,100. The only Priuses (Prii?) I'd found in my searching that were less expensive had good reason to be so, either with damage histories or much higher mileage. I don't regret the purchase and I'm hopeful it will work out well in the long run.

But I wanted to do things in a certain order and the dealer wasn't cooperating with my more methodical approach. That makes it sound like I was dealing with hardass high-pressure sales dudes, but if so they were really good at it and knew just the right way to charm without overtly charming, if that makes sense. I knew from the time of making the appointment that I had competition, one potential buyer at that location and a few from their primary lot in North Bend, where the car would have been taken early next week if it hadn't sold yet. (Whether the car would really have gone to North Bend in a few days I don't know, I give it a 40-60 chance that was BS, but I was reasonably sure I was competing with three others of indeterminate seriousness of intention.) Also, the dealership was not conveniently located, it was a 45 minute drive from my home; this was a Friday afternoon and anyplace I could get it inspected wouldn't be available until Monday; there was no attempt to upsell or get me to finance with them; and they offered me more than expected for my trade-in.

I just don't make big decisions impulsively. I am the Processing King of Shoreline, after all, I generally have to think things through to an extent that goes beyond usefulness. So I had a bit of anxiety at the dealership. I was about to walk away when the owner of the dealership upped the trade-in offer by $200, making it that much more than what others and websites had led me to believe I would get for trade-in value. He wanted my Subaru. So I asked for another $100 on top of that and he agreed and I felt like, OK, now I have to do it. Also, damn, maybe I should have asked for $200 more.

Still, I did insist on a window in which to get it third-party inspected with a guarantee that if the inspection turned up anything misrepresented or omitted by the dealer the contract would be nullified and I'd get my Subaru back, and they gave that in writing without any hemming and hawing at all.

So in effect I got what I wanted out of my deliberative process, I just had to get there in a more anxious way. Inspection is scheduled for Monday afternoon, I have until Thursday at close of business to exercise my "opt-out," if you will.

If they hadn't pressured me to buy it on the spot, or if they hadn't agreed to my trade-in ask, I'd likely not have gotten to go back for it later and eventually bought something else that would either have cost me more money, been a bit older, and/or been in worse condition. Or maybe not, who knows. My other leading contender had been an ’04 with about the same mileage and a lesser service history and a higher price tag by about $500. Others I was looking at had been in accidents, had been rental cars, or were more than $10k, and beyond that I'd be looking at payments and I have serious debt anxiety. I'd previously made an appointment to see another one today that's listed at $10k+ and that I was hoping I could negotiate down, but I obviously cancelled that.

Despite the residual anxiety, I'm looking at this in a positive light. When I get the inspection report I'll feel better either way—good choice, or CTRL-Z on the whole thing.

For now, though, it's a little weird; I parked it in a lot when I went into a store on the way home yesterday and when I came back out I automatically started heading for the red car parked a few spaces away before realizing that I don't have a red car anymore. Nothing is where I expect it to be on the dashboard. The split-level rear window is a bit strange. It's a little disconcerting when the gas engine stops running at stoplights. The buttons on the key fob are way too sensitive and I inadvertently set off the alarm last night. It'll take a little getting used to.

It's a used car, of course, so it's got some wear on it. The worst is a crack in the plastic bumper cover (I'd guess from backing into a post in a parking garage), which I can fix myself if I want to take the time to do it (thank you, YouTube). There's a tiny bit of paint scratching and a bit of paint wear on the rear spoiler. Again, I can touch that up if I want to, a can of matching paint and one of topcoat would cost less than $40. Even if I screw up the bumper and need a replacement, I can get one for $100 and paint/install it myself.

Now I've just got to figure out the "smart key" and how to pair the car to my phone. Sometimes it's weird, living in the future.

Tagged Cars, Money   |   Posted on August 17, 2024 at 5:54pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Sweep the Mets

B eat the Mets, beat the Mets, step right up and sweep the Mets...

The 2024 Seattle Mariners continue to confound, having just completed a three-game sweep of the New York Mets in which they outscored the visiting Gothamites 22-1. Coming into the series, the Mets were, by record, a superior team and holding a playoff position in the National League. Now they are not.

In the previous series, the Mariners were bested two-games-to-one by the well-under-.500 Detroit Tigers and were saved from a three-game sweep the bad way by the inexperience of a Detroit rookie right fielder, who let the game-winning runs score after misplaying a base hit into a walkoff double. Detroit outscored Seattle 13-8 in that series, including the three two-out runs that flipped that final game in Seattle's favor. 

There just is no consistency with this team. At least, not in terms of wins and losses; they had one good hot streak when they won eight of nine in June, but they followed that up with a slump that saw them drop 10 of 13. Hey, maybe they're finally on a roll! Ugh, now they're back to stinking up the place.

It's frustrating, because they could be truly great. They have a pitching staff that's the envy of the baseball world, but as has been the case for years, those pitchers have to make do with minimal support from the lineup. Prior to the late-July trades, there was no one in the Seattle offense that could be relied upon for much of anything except a whiff when putting the ball in play is what mattered.

As discussed yesterday, this is a self-inflicted would on the Mariners' part. The front office at some point decided to go all in on the idea of home runs as the only goal of batting. They hired coaches to perpetuate that thinking, and since 2020 those coaches include one Jarret DeHart. For the mini-season of 2020 and for 2021, DeHart was the number-two guy under Tim Laker, who at least was a former big-league catcher with experience to shape his methods even if he proved to be a rather poor batting coach. Since then, DeHart has been the top dog in the offensive coaching department despite never playing professional ball and going into coaching straight out of college—when the joined the M's in ’20, he was younger than rookies Sam Haggerty, Braden Bishop, and Jake Fraley; the same age as second-year big-leaguer Ty France and third-year player J.P. Crawford; and barely older than rookies Kyle Lewis and Evan White.

Now, experience does not equal effectiveness. The M's have had plenty of coaches and managers that prove that. But it helps. It's not only something to inform one's own thinking, it's something that players will rely on when taking instruction. Only with DeHart, almost every guy on the squad has more experience hitting a baseball than he does. Even young Julio Rodríguez was in pro ball while DeHart was still a student at Tulane. None of DeHart's experience involves life as a pro player, not even the low minor leagues, and once someone gets to the Majors the issues coaches face with players are as much psychological as mechanical (if not more so). I can't imagine a player in a slump going up to DeHart and asking for tips on how to work out of it and getting anything back that is relatable.

We've got several years' worth of history now with DeHart in the dugout, so I decided to look at the numbers. Here's a sampling (bold = MLB worst):

Year	W-L	R/G	BA	OBP	SLG	BA rank	OBP rank	K rank	3B <2 out RBI / MLB Avg	K%	3B <2 out K%	Prod. out % / MLB Avg
2020	27-33	4.23	.226	.309	.370	24th	27th	22nd	54.5% / 49.3%	25.0%	19.8%	28.1% / 25.3%
2021	90-72	4.30	.226	.303	.385	30th	28th	26th	46.5% / 49.9%	24.8%	23.6%	23.0% / 26.4%
2022	90-72	4.26	.230	.315	.390	27th	T15th	20th	46.4% / 50.9%	22.8%	18.9%	23.5% / 26.9%
2023	88-74	4.68	.242	.321	.413	22nd	16th	29th	41.7% / 50.1%	25.9%	27.1%	22.8% / 26.8%
2024	63-56	4.01	.218	.303	.371	29th	25th	30th	42.9% / 51.1%	27.8%	26.2%	18.7% / 28.0%

We can probably discount 2020 since it wasn't a real season with only 60 games. Still, the only thing better then was scoring runners from third, otherwise the whole DeHart era holds up as being terrible. The fact that the Mariners won as many games as they have in this span is shocking and shows how good they are on the pitching side of things. It's a real Jeckyll/Hyde coaching staff—hitting is the terrifying monster, pitching and defense (under Pete Woodward and Perry Hill, respectively) are the genius doctor.

The biggest item in that table to me is the productive out rate. Being able to advance runners is a necessary skill for any batter, but the M's just don't care about it. The scoring runners from 3rd with 0 or 1 out is in part a subset of the productive out rate, it just happens to be the most important one and the strikeout rates tell us that there is no adjustment being made for situational hitting: an easy RBI opportunity when a run can be batted in without needing a hit is treated no differently than any other trip to the plate.

But let's get a basis for comparison here. In contrast to the DeHart years, here's the same number set from the years Edgar Martínez was batting coach:

Year	W-L	R/G	BA	OBP	SLG	BA rank	OBP rank	K rank	3B <2 out RBI / MLB Avg	K%	3B <2 out K%	Prod. out % / MLB Avg
2016	86-76	4.74	.259	.326	.430	10th	9th	17th	49.7% / 50.5%	20.7%	21.6%	28.0% / 29.4%
2017	78-84	4.63	.259	.325	.424	11th	15th	22nd	50.0% / 50.9%	20.6%	20.9%	26.6% / 27.9%
2018	89-73	4.18	.254	.314	.408	10th	18th	3rd	50.0% / 49.6%	20.1%	20.3%	27.0% / 27.3%

Edgar wasn't the greatest coach, it turns out being the best at doing something doesn't necessarily translate into being the best at teaching it. But his experience surely counted for something: Though the runs per game and the on-base rate aren't much different, the productive out numbers are at least around league average and the strikeouts are significantly better. And for all of DeHart's emphasis on power hitting, the slug rates are generally worse under his reign.

I was happy to see the sweep of the Mets. It kept Seattle tied for the top spot in the American League West. But if that productive out rate was even average—just average!—this team, with this staff of starting pitchers, would be running away with the division and already plotting postseason strategies.

Clearly, I had too much time on my hands today.

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners   |   Posted on August 12, 2024 at 9:14pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Mariner musings

I attended the Mariner game last night with my friend Bill, a game that ended in a 6-0 victory for the hometown M's against the visiting New York Metropolitans. It was a crisply played game, one with timely hitting from the usually-moribund Seattle lineup to go with the great-as-usual starting pitching that was a welcome contrast to the previous series, when the M's dropped two of three—and really should have lost all three—to the rebuilding Detroit Tigers.

All season long—and really this goes back a few years at least—the Mariners' hitting prowess has been a joke. At this moment they are last in the Major Leagues in team batting average (.217), last in hits, and next-to-last in total bases. They are above only the hapless Chicago White Sox (who just snapped a 21-game losing streak), the nearly-as-hapless Miami Marlins, and those rebuilding Tigers in on-base percentage; and above only the White Sox and Marlins in runs scored per game. Yet, somehow they remain tied for first place in the American League West.

That's a testament to the outstanding pitching staff, but if either of the two other contenders in the division were having a typical season, the M's wouldn't be in shouting distance of first place with those kinds of offensive numbers.

Why are they so bad, though? I mean, the M's aren't lacking talented players. Most of the roster has shown real ability to hit.

My opinion? It's institutional. The Mariners themselves—the club entity, not the individual players—have employed a batting philosophy that does not work and coaching personnel that do not help, and rather than address that fundamental issue they have looked to scapegoating individual players as a method of "finding the problem."

After leading the universe in strikeouts last season, their attempt at a solution was to get rid of the players that had the most Ks and bring in less strikeout-prone replacements. Result? This season's Mariners once again lead all of baseball in strikeouts.

Over the course of this season, when things have been going poorly for some players, rather than try to address the struggles they either do nothing or drop them from the team. Mitch Garver is having the worst year of his career by a long shot, but no one is helping him try to right the ship. Having his own down year, Ty France was unceremoniously designated for assignment and eventually traded to the Reds for, I think, a used rosin bag and some sunflower seeds. This for a guy that was an All-Star as recently as 2022, a guy who looked like the second coming of Edgar Martinez until midway through last year's campaign (and a guy who I still believe will win a batting title or two at some point; now, though, it'll be for someone else). He's only had a few games with the Reds so far, but I will be surprised if he doesn't end the year batting at least .275 post-trade.

The Mariners have a batting coach named Jarret DeHart, a guy who has never played above college ball and is somehow in his fifth year as a big-league batting coach despite still being too young to run for President by several years. He's a child of the Statcast Age, someone who lives by the newfangled code of the "launch angle" and wants to see his hitters belt home runs as often as possible. And, since he's kept his job for these five years—there were rookies on the team older than him when he started!—I have to think the front office shares his priorities and hitting philosophies. Even though they haven't worked out. At all.

We've already mentioned the strikeouts. Those come part and parcel with swinging for the fences. Try to hit home runs all the time and you're going to strike out a lot, it's inevitable. So it only pays off if you make up for that in other ways, like drawing walks or hitting an exceptional number of extra-base hits. Even if you do that, a whole team doing that is not going to score much.

So, the M's lead the universe in striking out, but is that offset by slugging? Well, no. As a team they are currently slugging .369, again better than only the bottom-feeding White Sox and Marlins. They do draw a fair number of walks, but that doesn't mean much because once those batters are on base they don't usually come home: The M's leave 62% of baserunners aboard at the end of innings (league average is about 56%), thanks in large part to their inability to drive in runs from third base with 0 or 1 out. Predictably, the M's are last in the Majors in sac flies with just 16 on the year (MLB average is 31).

There are a few Mariners doing well and a few others who've improved, but that's telling as well. The guys doing well are mid-season acquisitions from other clubs: Victor Robles, the team's leading hitter at .310/.378/.460 since suiting up for Seattle, and Randy Arozarena, who in a dozen games as a Mariner has a line of .279/.414/.442. Meantime, Mitch Haniger,  Cal Raleigh, and Jorge Polanco have picked things up of late—Haniger has posted an on-base mark of .340 since the All-Star break (compared to .280 before); Raleigh likewise has an OBP of .340 since the last visit to Anaheim to play the Angels in early July (.294 before); and Polanco has posted a line of .282/.342/.535 over the past month (until aggravating a nagging injury the other night) after batting just .190/.280/.284 prior to that. The telling bit with those three is that each of them started hitting after consulting with outside help, getting coaching sessions with ex-big leaguers they know. Raleigh went to see Denny Hocking at Big League Swings in Anaheim for some private tutelage; Haniger has a history with an ex-player outside coach (I want to say Steve Lake, but I could easily be misremembering that) he reportedly revisited during the break; according to broadcaster Dave Sims, Polanco has a guy he went to for help while he was on the injured list.

This tells me that Jarret DeHart is so not-good at his job, that the Mariners as an organization are so bad when it comes to coaching batting and instruction on fundamentals, that any player needing an assist has to make time for and expend effort in finding it elsewhere; and if guys are going well after learning their craft somewhere else, they shouldn't listen to anything DeHart and his staff tells them.

Bill and I had a lot of fun at last night's game, with the good play on the field and the good conversation not only between the two of us but also with a pair of tourists from San Francisco in the row behind us who knew their baseball despite being far too young (they looked maybe 25) and shared my appreciation for ballpark aesthetics. On the drive home we were still kind of marveling at the score, and when I dropped Bill off he said to his neighbor, "the Mariners scored six whole runs! Can you believe it?"

Still tied for first. A postseason appearance is still as likely as not. But having no batting coach at all might be better than the negative impact the current one appears to inflict on the team.

 

Tagged Baseball, Seattle Mariners   |   Posted on August 10, 2024 at 7:34pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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More journalistic malpractice

Thursday afternoon, ex-President VonClownstick held a "press conference" at his tacky golf motel/stolen document storage facility. The reporters in attendance were treated to exactly what anyone who's been paying attention would have expected: a standard-issue Trump Grievance Whine campaign rally rant, with questions from the "press" that went unanswered and un-followed-up on. But the worst thing about it was not the candidate, it was the collective cowardice/incompetence of the reporters.

Shameful.

It's not a new phenomenon. Reporters have been treating this clown in much the same manner for almost a decade. But what is new, at least to me, is to see a fellow journalist take these worthless reporters down on national TV. That's what Lawrence O'Donnell did on his MSNBC show Thursday night.

Worth a look. It's about 15 minutes long, and then segues into Tim Walz introducing Kamala Harris at a speech to the UAW that, unlike the inane Trump presser, was not carried live on television.

 

Tagged Politics, Journalism, Lawrence O'Donnell   |   Posted on August 10, 2024 at 5:18pm   |   Permalink   |     |  

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We're Not Going Back

I designed the above as a bumper sticker and ordered a couple dozen of them. If you want one, let me know.

I did this because I'm psyched. Like I said before, I did not expect Joe Biden dropping out of the race to result in a non-chaos nightmare, but boy am I glad to be wrong on that one.

Kamalamentom is a real thing, it seems, and I absolutely love the choice of Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz is a relatable guy, military background as well as Congressional and statewide executive experience, and maybe best of all, a public school teacher. As Rachel Maddow put it the other day (paraphrasing), knowing how to handle a high school cafeteria food fight will be a useful skill when dealing with Republicans in Congress.

The pair of them are inspiring, and they have ex-President VonClownstick flailing and melting down. It's got me feeling more optimistic than ever that we'll avoid the headlong dive into authoritarian dictatorship that, though it remains a real possibility, seems more remote.

I heard about the video below—a PSA for a new Minnesota law a few years back restricting cell phone usage while driving—when listening to a recent episode of the Bob Cesca Show, so I went and looked for it on YouTube. I enjoyed it a lot, I think it shows so much of Tim Walz's humor and midwestern charm and "America's Dad" personality that will be a delight on the campaign trail. Please to enjoy.

 

 

Tagged Politics, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz   |   Posted on August 10, 2024 at 12:50am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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Free time

Well, Dad, it took several years, but you were right—there did come a time that I wanted to paint and/or stain these:

It's the ones on the right and one of the 3-drawer units in the middle that are my original homemade comic-book cabinets, built some time back in my dad's garage. The other center unit is newly built, the one on the left and another 8-drawer unit out of frame were built around the time I moved into my current abode. Out of frame below are ones made when I was a teenager by a contractor that my mom had hired to remodel her kitchen. (Those needed some adjustment; the contractor didn't really know what they were for. Those adjustments were also made in recent years.)

I also replaced, recut, and/or repositioned the 12 front panels on those initial builds, as they were all a little wonky in one way or another, and the 8 fronts in the out-of-frame cabinet that were originally done on the cheap and didn't fit that well.

Even with the new unit, these are all full. But there's no longer any overflow (well, not much) other than the batch previously pulled for eBay sales. There's room for maybe one more unit before drastic measures would have to be taken, so I'd best get really cracking on the eBay selling to slow the growth. This is a collection I've been amassing since I was 10 or 11 years old, some of which I really value having and a lot of which is, frankly, chaff. But collectors of anything will understand—even when trying to pare down and remove some chaff, there's always net growth.

It's been a fun project at any rate, something I had time to do since I don't have a lot of client work at the moment. I'm not minding that, really. Thanks to my mom willing me some resources, I'm not desperate for cash; between the work I do have and my umpiring gig, I'm getting by reasonably comfortably. A little woodworking in the garage has been a nice way to spend part of my summer.

It all looks a lot better now, despite some remaining wonkiness in some of the alignments. I can live with it.

I know, I know: Nerd.

Tagged Comics, Projects   |   Posted on August 10, 2024 at 12:31am   |   Permalink   |     |  

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