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    So, what happens when you run out of players?

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      This is so dumb.

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        Very Steinbrenner fils, and therefore dumb by definition

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          It’s no dumber than the billion other things MLB does.

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            True, but that doesn't not make it very dumb.

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              It's not dumb.
              It's corny.







              Sorry.

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                They should do a Kes crossover. Kestrels bothering the players would make it even more epic.

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                  Thank Christ for that. Turns out we can occasionally win on the road.

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                    Weird series

                    Really didn't feel like a split

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                      The Giants are retiring Will Clark's 22.

                      Feels kind of weird as he's not a Hall of Famer and wouldn't be one had the Hall not disappeared up its own tucchus, like Bonds. Although with Baines getting in, who isn't a Hall of Famer these days, so the Giants could make a decent argument that they're pumping the tires of his Vets Committee case. There are certainly worse players than him in the Hall, and I don't just mean Baines.

                      The Giants didn't even really hold back his number like the Dodgers do with Fernando or the Red Sox do with Clemens, 22 (lol) separate players have worn it.

                      I suspect part of the thinking is also the Giants looking down the pike to the increasingly-likely scenario where nobody from their 2010-2014 teams is a Hall of Famer - Posey's candidacy has just fallen off the cliff in the past two years, as has Bumgarner's - as the idea of no player having a number retired from the 2010-14 teams seems difficult to conceive for the Giants. Emphasis on player, because Bochy is going to the Hall of Fame, so 6 is being retired.

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                        You can add Timmy to the list of once-viable candidacies who crashed and burned.

                        It will be strange if Bochy is the only representative of a triple World Champion, but it definitely looks as if it is headed that way.

                        Clark was extremely boorish to a friend of a friend with whom he had a relationship of sorts during his peak, so I've never been a fan, but he does have a huge number of vocal supporters from that Croix de Candlestick generation. I can definitely see the club being induced to do this out of a desire to access more of that generation's current spending power.

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                          Originally posted by Ginger Yellow View Post
                          I don't think it's dumb. I love that movie. It's better than the book, in my opinion.

                          I imagine they wanted to do it this year on the 30th anniversary of the film, but couldn't get it sorted for whatever reason.

                          I wonder if they'll do it at night and use the kind of lights that small parks have, like they did in the film, or if they'll insist on it being as well lit as a modern MLB stadium, which will take away from the atmosphere. I imagine tickets will be pretty much impossible to get. They'll all go to sponsors and a few lucky little leaguers. And to Kevin Costner.

                          They've also played MLB games in Williamsport to correspond with the LLWS and pre-season games in minor league parks are common.

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                            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                            You can add Timmy to the list of once-viable candidacies who crashed and burned.

                            It will be strange if Bochy is the only representative of a triple World Champion, but it definitely looks as if it is headed that way.

                            Clark was extremely boorish to a friend of a friend with whom he had a relationship of sorts during his peak, so I've never been a fan, but he does have a huge number of vocal supporters from that Croix de Candlestick generation. I can definitely see the club being induced to do this out of a desire to access more of that generation's current spending power.
                            Oh yeah, Clark's elevation into Franchise Icon status is a relatively recent development. It was nowhere near as pronounced as when I still lived in San Francisco. He was popular, sure, and a star, but the guy left in free agency in 1994 and I don't really recall a lot of outcry about it. You didn't really see a lot of the Clark nostalgia until relatively recently.

                            Not to get all Derrida and Fisher here, but there's a fair bit of hauntology with Clark with a side dose of authentocracy. He's like the one-man wrecking crew you can use to own techie blow-ins from Ohio about how much you're a real Giants fan: I used to go to Candlestick from my affordable apartment in Noe Valley and watch Will Clark! The late 80s Giants uniforms and hats are extremely popular in SF. Part of that is just the Marketing-Driven Fortune Wheel of Nostalgia has turned to X/Millennials (the Giants have had the same hats since 1994 and the same basic unis since 2000, and their 94-99 jerseys aren't much different than today's so there's not much to work with) and part of it is I think a pretty conscious effort from people to differentiate themselves from the techie blow-ins, many of whom weren't even around for Bonds.

                            Clark's a weird guy, a little crazy. Kevin Mitchell IIRC claims that Clark was racist to him, which Clark denies. There's generally a consensus around most SF athletes I know in terms of personal interaction: Montana distant, Rice good, Lott good, Young good, Mays can be a jerk, DiMaggio made Montana look outgoing and friendly, McCovey was a saint, but it's about 50/50 on "Will Clark, great guy!" and "Will Clark was a jerk to me".

                            Speaking of Timmy, his retirement number bandwagon just grew big time. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he gets his number retired. He's still enormously popular in SF, probably as much as any current player, and he's half-Filipino so that would market very well.

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                              I recall that he was on those ESPN Saturday/Sunday morning fishing and hunting shows. I don’t know why I watched those. But I recall he was on them. So he was popular as a kind of white Everyman that always attracts fans. Like Sean Casey, but better at baseball and yet not as personable.

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                                He was a hell of a lot better than Sean Casey, that’s for sure. Clark had a better career than a lot of Hall of Famers and had a legit superstar peak. A lot of people (namely Bill James with Win Shares, WAR bears this out too) thought he got jobbed out of the MVP in ‘89 as Kevin Mitchell hit 47 home runs back when that was a really big deal and Clark did everything well except run for speed (he was a good base runner though, he got those weird ‘87 numbers through a ton of failed hit and runs IIRC). He also got a ton of clutch hits that year. Mitch was my first favourite player, but he was the archetypal slugger who just hit the ball really far and took walks. He’d put too much weight on to do much else.

                                In addition to that, Clark had one of the best final seasons of any player, hitting .319 with walks and power for the Orioles and Cardinals in 2000. He retired because his son had been diagnosed with autism, otherwise he certainly could have hung around for another 2-3 years and probably passed some career milestones in the meantime.

                                His midcareer power sag was due to back issues, although he did a good job compensating for it by walking more. His post SF OBP is almost .400, 25 points higher than in SF. The offensive environment explains some of that, but not all.

                                That’s the best excuse the Giants can give for retiring his number, he has a legit HOF case - he’s better than the Jim Rices of the world - so there’s a decent chance they just look prescient rather than gawping.

                                He was a crazy redneck (although he’s actually from Nawlins proper, and if you listen closely you can hear it) who likes to hunt and fish, but he was a great player.

                                And he did have the best swing of his generation too.

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                                  As a Dodger fan, I did not like Clark. But I think he's definitely HOF worthy. Hopefully the veterans committee will rectify the situation.

                                  I might have posted this last season as well, but it seems to me that there are way more blowouts this season than in past seasons. Is there somewhere to find a stat about this? It just seems like 2/3+ of the games on any given day are not even close. And even the scores might read as close 8 to 5, for example, the team that lost only had runs trickle in but the game was done once the winning team had 8 (e.g., Orioles-Yankees games these past couple days). I'm pretty consistent with MLB Tonight or Quick Pitch on MLB Network and it feels like the wild card races are close but on most nights the games themselves just aren't that close.

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                                    On blowouts, this plots margin of victory through 2010.

                                    As you can see, it has been relatively stable over time. A plot of the last decade would be interesting, but is unfortunately beyond my Play Index query skills.

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                                      Way back when I was a kid and didn't really have any allegiance to any team, Will Clark was my favorite player. I have no idea why I settled on him, but I did. I also was a big fan of Matt Williams and was going to go see the Giants play the Dodgers, but didn't get to go to the game because of the strike.

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                                        That wouldn't be a strike even in Little League, which has a very generous strike-zone.

                                        I wouldn't be opposed to robot umpires.

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                                          Supposedly it had a 0.00 percent chance of being called a strike given calls in the Statcast Era

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                                            Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                            On blowouts, this plots margin of victory through 2010.

                                            As you can see, it has been relatively stable over time. A plot of the last decade would be interesting, but is unfortunately beyond my Play Index query skills.
                                            What is this Play Index you refer to?

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                                              The subscription-based engine for querying Baseball Reference's database(s).

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                                                I see. So does it require some kind of special code? (I know nothing of that, but could learn if it were useful).

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                                                  Not code, but there is an art to developing queries and all the ins and outs of the database(s)

                                                  The YouTube channel has a series of videos on how to use it effectively.

                                                  I subscribed for a while, but found that I wasn't using it that often.

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