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Currently at Toronto Pearson: 24. High today: 31.
There's a ragged, broken-down cold front lying across southern Ontario, but it's only really evident if you look closely at the numbers, or if you look at the Weather Network's systems map, which I did because what happened to the numbers this afternoon was so screwy. The dewpoint at Pearson marched up steadily from 9 at 1 last night to 20 at 3 this afternoon, and then crashed back to 16 at 4 (with the wind swinging from SSE to NW), despite the temperature going up from 28 at 3 to 31 at 4. This made me suspicious because the dewpoint didn't drop at all at the Island, Waterloo, or Hamilton. But in Peterborough, from 1 to 4 this afternoon, it lost two degrees per hour, and at Lake Simcoe airport it dropped from 18 at 11 a.m. to 10 at 3 p.m. Now, tonight, between 8 and 11, it dropped from 20 to 14 in London--but it's only down to 18 in Waterloo, and while it's gotten down to 16 at the Island, it's been as low as 12 at Pearson. Peterborough, with the front well to the south, now has a temperature of 15, but a dewpoint one degree higher than Pearson's at 14. So, this is all a fascinating example of how ragged fronts can be in reality, as opposed to those nice clean blue lines on the weather maps.
More poking around on inflation reveals something pretty funny: since 1992 (and this effect is only evident since then), the CPI in the US has dropped between November and December in 11 years, stayed the same in four years, and risen once. Looks like maybe "seasonally adjusted" should be adjusted to account for Christmas sales.
I know, I know, baseball baseball baseball, but I have been meaning to say, and it must be said, and I am a bit surprised that no one on the world wide interwebs seems to have ever said it: DOESN"T ANDY PETTITE LOOK LIKE SNOOPY-VULTURE when he's peering in for the sign, especially from the stretch when he shoves his glove into his nose and it looks like a big long nose?
One more thing from the All-Star Game: somebody sometime said that A-Rod is the best player in the game, but Pujols is the best hitter in the game. This assumes that A-Rod is sufficiently superior to Pujols in some combination of defence and speed to make A-Rod an all-around better player. So, let's try to get speed out of the way first: A-Rod has 13 stolen bases this year; Pujols has 3. OK, no contest there. But A-Rod hasn't stolen more than 30 bases since 1998, and since 2004, A-Rod has four triples, while Pujols has six. A-Rod hasn't tripled since 2006, hasn't had more than one since 2004, which is really pretty amazing for a guy who's supposed to be fast, and especially for a guy who's supposed to be fast and who a) hits a lot of balls hard to right field, and b) has a home park with some of the longest power-alleys in baseball.
Having concluded that A-Rod is maybe a bit faster than Pujols and anyway a significantly better base-stealer but not in a way that would be particularly noteworthy if he didn't also hit a lot of home runs, let's look at fielding. A-Rod has had a below-average range factor every year since he's been a third baseman--remarkable for a converted shortstop, especially a converted shortstop who usually had an above-average range factor as a shortstop, and of course it goes to show how ridiculous it was to move A-Rod to third instead of moving Jeter to second, which Jeter would have happily done if he was the god among men that the Jeter Cult insists only bad people fail to recognize him as. But I digress. On the other hand, his fielding percentage has been a bit above average as a third baseman, which is also pretty amazing when you consider the case of yips he developed a couple of years ago that seemed to threaten to make him a DH for the rest of his career. Pujols, on the other hand, utterly destroys the average range factor for NL first basemen, year after year, with a slightly above-average fielding percentage. Of course, you can argue that third base is a more demanding position--it certainly is a position from which you can make more throwing errors--but look, the first baseman is involved in just about every infield ground ball in play, and even if missed scoops don't show up as errors, made scoops do show up in range factor. And if you want to say first basemen don't have to throw the ball, well, then, throwing is the thing that A-Rod is absolutely worst at, so, what?
So: A-Rod has a small but significant advantage in speed; Pujols blows A-Rod away in defence. Not only does A-Rod not have the speed and defence to make up the difference between his .972 OPS and Pujols's 1.074 this year (.312 BA vs. .350! 33/58 BB/K vs. 61/30!); A-Rod's speed and defence combined leave him further behind. QED!
And with one more reminder to HELP PROPAGATE THE CURSE OF YANKEE STADIUM, I am going to attempt to put my budding career as a baseball blogger on hiatus for a few weeks. A few days. Something.
Oh yeah, also: that thing Ryan Dempster does with his glove, twisting it back and forth, that is the weirdest thing I have ever seen a pitcher do with his glove.
That is all.
There's a ragged, broken-down cold front lying across southern Ontario, but it's only really evident if you look closely at the numbers, or if you look at the Weather Network's systems map, which I did because what happened to the numbers this afternoon was so screwy. The dewpoint at Pearson marched up steadily from 9 at 1 last night to 20 at 3 this afternoon, and then crashed back to 16 at 4 (with the wind swinging from SSE to NW), despite the temperature going up from 28 at 3 to 31 at 4. This made me suspicious because the dewpoint didn't drop at all at the Island, Waterloo, or Hamilton. But in Peterborough, from 1 to 4 this afternoon, it lost two degrees per hour, and at Lake Simcoe airport it dropped from 18 at 11 a.m. to 10 at 3 p.m. Now, tonight, between 8 and 11, it dropped from 20 to 14 in London--but it's only down to 18 in Waterloo, and while it's gotten down to 16 at the Island, it's been as low as 12 at Pearson. Peterborough, with the front well to the south, now has a temperature of 15, but a dewpoint one degree higher than Pearson's at 14. So, this is all a fascinating example of how ragged fronts can be in reality, as opposed to those nice clean blue lines on the weather maps.
More poking around on inflation reveals something pretty funny: since 1992 (and this effect is only evident since then), the CPI in the US has dropped between November and December in 11 years, stayed the same in four years, and risen once. Looks like maybe "seasonally adjusted" should be adjusted to account for Christmas sales.
I know, I know, baseball baseball baseball, but I have been meaning to say, and it must be said, and I am a bit surprised that no one on the world wide interwebs seems to have ever said it: DOESN"T ANDY PETTITE LOOK LIKE SNOOPY-VULTURE when he's peering in for the sign, especially from the stretch when he shoves his glove into his nose and it looks like a big long nose?
One more thing from the All-Star Game: somebody sometime said that A-Rod is the best player in the game, but Pujols is the best hitter in the game. This assumes that A-Rod is sufficiently superior to Pujols in some combination of defence and speed to make A-Rod an all-around better player. So, let's try to get speed out of the way first: A-Rod has 13 stolen bases this year; Pujols has 3. OK, no contest there. But A-Rod hasn't stolen more than 30 bases since 1998, and since 2004, A-Rod has four triples, while Pujols has six. A-Rod hasn't tripled since 2006, hasn't had more than one since 2004, which is really pretty amazing for a guy who's supposed to be fast, and especially for a guy who's supposed to be fast and who a) hits a lot of balls hard to right field, and b) has a home park with some of the longest power-alleys in baseball.
Having concluded that A-Rod is maybe a bit faster than Pujols and anyway a significantly better base-stealer but not in a way that would be particularly noteworthy if he didn't also hit a lot of home runs, let's look at fielding. A-Rod has had a below-average range factor every year since he's been a third baseman--remarkable for a converted shortstop, especially a converted shortstop who usually had an above-average range factor as a shortstop, and of course it goes to show how ridiculous it was to move A-Rod to third instead of moving Jeter to second, which Jeter would have happily done if he was the god among men that the Jeter Cult insists only bad people fail to recognize him as. But I digress. On the other hand, his fielding percentage has been a bit above average as a third baseman, which is also pretty amazing when you consider the case of yips he developed a couple of years ago that seemed to threaten to make him a DH for the rest of his career. Pujols, on the other hand, utterly destroys the average range factor for NL first basemen, year after year, with a slightly above-average fielding percentage. Of course, you can argue that third base is a more demanding position--it certainly is a position from which you can make more throwing errors--but look, the first baseman is involved in just about every infield ground ball in play, and even if missed scoops don't show up as errors, made scoops do show up in range factor. And if you want to say first basemen don't have to throw the ball, well, then, throwing is the thing that A-Rod is absolutely worst at, so, what?
So: A-Rod has a small but significant advantage in speed; Pujols blows A-Rod away in defence. Not only does A-Rod not have the speed and defence to make up the difference between his .972 OPS and Pujols's 1.074 this year (.312 BA vs. .350! 33/58 BB/K vs. 61/30!); A-Rod's speed and defence combined leave him further behind. QED!
And with one more reminder to HELP PROPAGATE THE CURSE OF YANKEE STADIUM, I am going to attempt to put my budding career as a baseball blogger on hiatus for a few weeks. A few days. Something.
Oh yeah, also: that thing Ryan Dempster does with his glove, twisting it back and forth, that is the weirdest thing I have ever seen a pitcher do with his glove.
That is all.
