I thought the year must be wrong for Thome on that DH list. But it was correct: at age 39 he had a 182 OPS+ (2nd-best of his career). Put up 3.4 bWAR as a fulltime DH in only 340 plate appearances.
Tip of the cap to the Brewers. Gotta attribute one key ingredient of their wonderful chemistry to having "Harry Doyle" hang out in their booth. May Bob Eucker grace baseball FOREVER!!!
I found this Connections game very very hard. I was so sure Jack Morris was 1991 World Series MVP… who is Gene Larkin? Also, I think of Roy Halladay as a guy who had two no-hitters in one season: his perfecto and his playoff no-hitter were both in 2010! And, indeed, the category does not even specify that you meant regular season. Sigh.
Meanwhile, across town from the ChiSox, the Cubs are doing their best Lazarus impression, going from 9-under to 6-over (before last night's loss) in two months. Their odds of making the playoffs remain slim -- if both the Braves and the Mets played .500 ball the rest of the way, the Cubs would need to go 16-8 to top them -- but a relatively weak schedule for the North Siders could make things interesting.
OK, the average "run differential per game" is -2.2 - that is the MEAN. (total run diff / games). But what is the MEDIAN? And actually, a more relevant number would be the MODE: most common run differential in their games.
What percentage of their games have been lost by one or two runs? There's a chance that a good number of games have been lost due to pure bad luck.
Go check out the bref page, it's truly astonishing. OPS+ of 74 as a team, ERA+ of 86. Looks like 63 losses by 3 or more runs. 25 1 run losses win 9 one run wins. My guess is there isn't too much bad luck here, just historical awfulness.
If you take the three longest streaks of their season, 11 +14 + 21 = 46. 108 (current loses) - 46 = 62. That would leave them at 31-62 YTD, which is still only a .333 winning percentage for the season. Absolutely the worst in either league, the next to worst is the Rockies & /Marlins at .370 and .372, respectively. Which is terrible, but in the same league as these Sox.
If every team was able to shave of 46 loses, literally every other team would have winning record. The Rockies would then be 51-41, and the Marlins would be sporting a 51-40 record.
We’re watching an historic season for sure. Not the kind I was hoping for. But if you’re going to be among the worst of all-time, be the WORST OF ALL TIME. (Sorry for the all-caps, italics don’t take in these forums.)
Ugh I did terrible on that connections. The “multiple no-hitters in a season” really got me because I had Roy Halladay clicked and it kept telling me I was wrong before I finally noticed Allie Reynolds. What a terrible showing by me
Joe, the multi-sport Connections were EASIER, because there were SO MANY groups of four you could make! Also, there were more than four players with multiple no-hitters in the same season (Roy Halladay should count; just because one was in the playoffs doesn't mean it was in a different year, and I got all excited and messed up immediately. Both his perfecto and playoff no-no were in 2010)!
But overall, I thought this was a perfectly-pitched difficulty-level for a Connections game! Very solvable, and from multiple angles. Honestly, more at this level would be great. A Connections is something you should be able to maybe get tricked by, but still solve in a couple minutes (even when you do them while your brain is still sleep-addled, as mine usually is when I do the Connections). I thought this was great!
Yeah, was tough but fair. Paul Skenes group was the first one I got because of recency bias. The not-Halladay question next after one wrong guess. Then the Morris group with one wrong guess. And backed into the last group, but had a feeling. Need more of these. Connections is my favorite NY Times game.
In a parallel universe somewhere that does not have a players union, television contracts, owners associations, player agents, and processes and protocols for every single thing--in that parallel universe the White Sox would relegate/trade/sell/ their entire team, and hold walk-on tryouts among the fans, and offer contracts to some college women's softball players, or some other athlete from a different field, retired old timers, magicians, youtube trick shooters, local high school heroes, etc etc and just see what kind of magic could be ginned up.
In that parallel universe the team would absolutely lose fewer than 120 games, and would endear themselves to their fanbase and expand their fanbase outside of ordinary baseball fans.
The White Sox team slugging percentage this season is .340--a healthy four points higher than Zack Greinke's career slugging percentage of .336.
Sixteen pitchers who could be grouped a variety of ways. Didn’t come close to getting even one category right before giving up.
Brutal.
I thought the year must be wrong for Thome on that DH list. But it was correct: at age 39 he had a 182 OPS+ (2nd-best of his career). Put up 3.4 bWAR as a fulltime DH in only 340 plate appearances.
JoeBlogs — Starters
That was hard!
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got thrown for a loop because Morris fit multiple categories (and I misremembered Scherzer as doing the same)
JoeBlogs — Starters
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Tip of the cap to the Brewers. Gotta attribute one key ingredient of their wonderful chemistry to having "Harry Doyle" hang out in their booth. May Bob Eucker grace baseball FOREVER!!!
I can't believe you didn't tell us that S. Jenkins is winning an award named after her dad, D Jenkins.
Anyway, very deserving, that Navratilova-Evert story was brilliant.
JoeBlogs — Starters
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I found this Connections game very very hard. I was so sure Jack Morris was 1991 World Series MVP… who is Gene Larkin? Also, I think of Roy Halladay as a guy who had two no-hitters in one season: his perfecto and his playoff no-hitter were both in 2010! And, indeed, the category does not even specify that you meant regular season. Sigh.
Meanwhile, across town from the ChiSox, the Cubs are doing their best Lazarus impression, going from 9-under to 6-over (before last night's loss) in two months. Their odds of making the playoffs remain slim -- if both the Braves and the Mets played .500 ball the rest of the way, the Cubs would need to go 16-8 to top them -- but a relatively weak schedule for the North Siders could make things interesting.
Seeing Pete Appleton’s name in this post made me smile. If you are not familiar with him, check out his SABR bio. Interesting guy.
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/pete-appleton/
Had no idea where to start with the Connections. Much easier with multiple topics/sports.
Also worth noting:
The NL batting leaders right now are:
Luis Arraez .310
Marcel Ozuna .306
Trea Turner .299
Ketel Marte .298
Is it conceivable that the NL batting leader at the end of the year have an average UNDER .300?
In re: The White Sox:
OK, the average "run differential per game" is -2.2 - that is the MEAN. (total run diff / games). But what is the MEDIAN? And actually, a more relevant number would be the MODE: most common run differential in their games.
What percentage of their games have been lost by one or two runs? There's a chance that a good number of games have been lost due to pure bad luck.
Go check out the bref page, it's truly astonishing. OPS+ of 74 as a team, ERA+ of 86. Looks like 63 losses by 3 or more runs. 25 1 run losses win 9 one run wins. My guess is there isn't too much bad luck here, just historical awfulness.
If luck is the case, the 2024 White Sox make Charlie Brown's team look like the luckiest team in baseball history . . .
They're 9-27 in one run games and 8-34 in games decided by 5 runs or more.
Since the AS break, they're 1-8 in one run games. So maybe some bad luck in the first half, but they're just appalling in the second.
If you take the three longest streaks of their season, 11 +14 + 21 = 46. 108 (current loses) - 46 = 62. That would leave them at 31-62 YTD, which is still only a .333 winning percentage for the season. Absolutely the worst in either league, the next to worst is the Rockies & /Marlins at .370 and .372, respectively. Which is terrible, but in the same league as these Sox.
If every team was able to shave of 46 loses, literally every other team would have winning record. The Rockies would then be 51-41, and the Marlins would be sporting a 51-40 record.
We’re watching an historic season for sure. Not the kind I was hoping for. But if you’re going to be among the worst of all-time, be the WORST OF ALL TIME. (Sorry for the all-caps, italics don’t take in these forums.)
Ugh I did terrible on that connections. The “multiple no-hitters in a season” really got me because I had Roy Halladay clicked and it kept telling me I was wrong before I finally noticed Allie Reynolds. What a terrible showing by me
***CONNECTIONS SPOILERS IN THIS POST***
Joe, the multi-sport Connections were EASIER, because there were SO MANY groups of four you could make! Also, there were more than four players with multiple no-hitters in the same season (Roy Halladay should count; just because one was in the playoffs doesn't mean it was in a different year, and I got all excited and messed up immediately. Both his perfecto and playoff no-no were in 2010)!
But overall, I thought this was a perfectly-pitched difficulty-level for a Connections game! Very solvable, and from multiple angles. Honestly, more at this level would be great. A Connections is something you should be able to maybe get tricked by, but still solve in a couple minutes (even when you do them while your brain is still sleep-addled, as mine usually is when I do the Connections). I thought this was great!
Agree...that one tripped me up too, as Halladay was the FIRST guy I paired with Vandermeer...
Yeah, was tough but fair. Paul Skenes group was the first one I got because of recency bias. The not-Halladay question next after one wrong guess. Then the Morris group with one wrong guess. And backed into the last group, but had a feeling. Need more of these. Connections is my favorite NY Times game.
In a parallel universe somewhere that does not have a players union, television contracts, owners associations, player agents, and processes and protocols for every single thing--in that parallel universe the White Sox would relegate/trade/sell/ their entire team, and hold walk-on tryouts among the fans, and offer contracts to some college women's softball players, or some other athlete from a different field, retired old timers, magicians, youtube trick shooters, local high school heroes, etc etc and just see what kind of magic could be ginned up.
In that parallel universe the team would absolutely lose fewer than 120 games, and would endear themselves to their fanbase and expand their fanbase outside of ordinary baseball fans.