I think you're assuming we know all the details of the transgression. I certainly don't.

President Don Vincente Ribiera.

I was afraid that this might actually happen. His death isn't any less of a tragedy for it. We might choose not to honor him in the same way, but I would hate to see anyone argue that we shouldn't mourn his death.

I think Verlander's got a solid narrative behind him - we thought he was done as an elite starter, now he's probably top 3 in the league - although I am not sure I'd put him over Sale or Kluber.

How about we ignore him like the washed-up quarterback he is?

Desmond's first half was the outlier. (I've noticed the trolls telling me I was wrong to criticize that signing have disappeared, too.) I prefer Gomez's raw ability and potential for plus defense, but isn't banking on him a huge bet on a tiny sample?

It's a coding issue - BIS doesn't mark anything as a shift if it doesn't involve an infielder moving to the opposite side of second base. (I'm 99% sure that's correct.) Soif you move your shortstop so that he's essentially behind second base, that's not marked as a "shift," but it looks like a shift to me - it's extreme positioning, at least. So no, I don't think you'll see a move away from shifts, but you will absolutely see a rise in fine-tuning positioning per batter or per batter-pitcher combo and away from 'dumb' shifts where you just run the third baseman out into short right field for any pull-hitting LHB.

Because people choose what they want to believe first and find links to confirm those beliefs second. Drop in on any so-called debate between vaccine denialists and, well, rational human beings, and you'll see the former hit you with a stream of links from garbage sites that promote junk science over real research.

I would never give any team in a playoff series less than 45% odds to win it.

Andre Dawson. Tony Perez. I guess Jim Rice, although no one ever considered him a great player until he became the Luddites' cause celebre. Jack Morris, perhaps.

Carry 5-6 relievers and stack the bench with PH options (and maybe a Terence Gore if you have one).

Nope. When he was traded to Houston I wrote that I didn't foresee more than fringe-average power. Granted that was five or six years ago, but still, he's got more than that.

Depends on what that "low ceiling" is. An average everyday player who makes $500K a year is an extremely valuable commodity, even if there's zero chance he's ever better than that.

I would not give up on him entirely given his youth, but every report I got this year was negative.

It's on the list I've created for myself, although the odds are good I won't get through much this winter because we never seem to have that much time between when my daughter falls asleep and when we have to do the same.

Great defender, pitchers love working with him, long shot to do much with the bat. The Ramos injury is just brutal for them.

Totally agree. I think everyone in MLB knows there's a problem, but the status quo is working for individual owners so they don't want to be the ones to change it.

Why announce it? Just do it. Let other teams figure it out. Plus this way you avoid media questions when those circumstances do occur.

I've spoken to a lot of analysts while working on my book, and one thing that's come up often is skepticism of large one-year spikes in defensive metrics like this one. If a player is +15 like CH is this year, without any history of it, you can say with some certainty that he's been an above-average defender, but should doubt that he's been THAT good a defender. MLB clubs have much more precise data to work with and they implied that they get fewer of these outliers.

That's what's happening right now with analytics, but I think the new data streams will end up influencing all parts of the game. Defensive positioning is just the low-hanging fruit.

Still think there's something more to be extracted from Hosmer's bat. Might need a different organization & hitting philosophy.

Not off the top of my head. Shaw has that kind of raw power, but it's a below-average hit tool (slow bat, doesn't see the ball well). Reynolds is more like a 25 HR/25 SB guy, and strikeouts are an issue with him because he tends to run very deep counts and needs a better two-strike approach. I like him quite a bit, though, more than Shaw.

I assume we're talking coffee here. I haven't, but here's a bunch: Intelligentsia, Four Barrel, Blue Bottle, Cartel, heart, Archetype, Deeper Roots, Re-Animator, Royal Mile, Cuvee, 49th Parallel (BC).

Nothing I noticed. I mentioned in my review that I thought Will & Grace might get a mention, since it was a cultural milestone, but it just wasn't that great a show, especially after the first two seasons, and Sepinwall confirmed to me that that was the reason it didn't make the cut. (The Prisoner wasn't eligible for their book because it was British.)

I talked about that a little bit, but I didn't want to make it seem like I was somehow walking back the assertion that I made a mistake. (I hate calling it an "admission," as if I made a moral error. "Forgive me, Bill James, for I have sinned.") You are correct in that he is in the right place at the right time in baseball history, where the Cubs, a very analytically-minded organization top to bottom, could see him and the data and get him to throw his changeup more, to try to work more to the edges of the strike zone, to encourage contact because the fielders will be in the right places. Give the player credit too - I would always rather say, hey, I was wrong, because the kid made me wrong.

Yes and perhaps that's the benefit - it told everybody that he needs to start next year in the minors.

He's deserving, but not the top candidate. Perhaps the NL Cy Young Award could become the Jose Fernandez Award, and the Cy Young Award would just refer to the AL?

No. I believe that a human predicting the results will fare no better than a random prediction. I believe that a lot of luck goes into the postseason, from health to timing to matchups. But to say they're just based on randomness would wipe out any role the players themselves play. Madison Bumgarner having the October of his life - of anyone's life - was not "random." The result, the Giants winning the WS as the 8th best team in baseball, may seem random in context, but the victory itself was not random.

He was quietly very good this year, and I looked at him for today's article but decided there wasn't really enough of a delta between what he did and what I thought he'd be (4/5 starter). League-average starter? I'll buy that.

They will be hiring him. I don't know him that well, and am surprised they would hire a President who has never formally run a department of any sort; they interviewed Chaim Bloom, who appears to have the same skill set and background, but has managed a department before. That's not a knock on Falvey per se, and may simply reflect my own ignorance. I have no sense of what they'll do for GM.

Yet we have a major political party arguing it's bunk, and its candidate for President claiming it's a fiction created by China. This is an existential crisis that affects everybody - the cost of food, the supply of clean water, the feasibility of living near coasts, global energy costs and supply - and slightly more than half of our polity is in abject denial.

Just a dude, I think.

I'm not certain that actually helps - pitching guys less within games seems like it has more benefit in fatigue reduction. That's based on scant evidence, though. Either way, this is hypothetical because it seems impossible that all seven will be healthy at the same time.

Upsetting is putting it strongly; the writers as a whole are bad at this stuff and will always be, perhaps increasingly so as the gap between what teams know and what we know increases. If Trout loses, it'll be to Betts, who's #2. If Britton loses, it would be like David Ortiz winning MVP this year - a narrative defeating facts.

I say corned beef is disgusting.

I've acknowledged the possibility on numerous occasions, and even supported it in the case of amphetamines. So I don't think you know what you're talking about.

Well, if that's the case, Falvey shouldn't hire him.

They don't. UZR has him 18th of 24 shortstops this year, and a couple of guys below him aren't really shortstops. Also, it has Elvis Andrus among the worst, which surprised me. UZR isn't the be-all and end-all but it matches the eye test on Cabrera.

If it's real coffee, black, no sweetener.

Explain the difference between Keynesian economics and the monetarist school. Or something about climate change, but this year that would be a rout.

Yes. His bat speed hasn't changed - that's wishful thinking.

I think he has more power than Markakis ever managed to show in the majors, although Markakis as a prospect projected to show more than he ever did.

Traders and Builders is pretty awesome.

Didn't he pull the same shit with Daniel Norris last September? A 50-something pitch first inning, right? Just fire him. This isn't a solitary error in judgment. It's a pattern of ignorance. (And hire Alex Cora to replace him!)

Been taking meds for anxiety for four years and I'm more "me" with them than I ever was without them. Prior to that - I take escitalopram, 20mg/day - the person you saw, met, even talked to online was dominated by the effects of the constant low hum of anxiety. Now I think more clearly, I'm more deliberate, I'm calmer, and everyone in my life has noticed.

Never wrote for myself before, and I rarely take notes unless there's a great quote I want to remember. Glad you enjoy them.

Light. I'm a third-wave guy.

Who can tell? I feel like the GOP would do better to focus on the actual policy questions, such as things she voted for in Congress that were mistakes - I would say the Patriot Act, but that's probably not a good talking point for them - rather than this stuff or blaming her for her husband's imbroglios.

No shot. Bad coffee + environmental disaster.

I think so. And if I could time-travel back to when he was in the minors, the one thing I would tell myself most on him is "just give him more of a chance."