Last year I lost $240 betting on the Mariners to win more than 70 games. This year the line actually went up, to 71.5 at Bovada.lv (not sure about the B&M books in Vegas). I decided to take the under, because I don't think the Mariners have significantly improved as a team since last year, while Texas and LALALALALALA have both gotten significantly better. Counterpoint is that the Ms had a lot of bad luck last year, so they should be expected to bounce back. I dunno, I'm just not feeling it based on a variety of factors.

I don't think this makes me a bad fan, as I'm just betting on a line that I think is off. Note that I am no professional handicapper, in fact I am just learning a lot about sports betting and I know that these props are usually bad bets. But I got under 71.5 at -105 so that's not too bad (last year I had over 70 at -120).

Dave has his analysis of some vulnerable O/U lines over at fangraphs. What do you think?

Hey folks,

I'll be heading to Spring Training in a few short days, attending games from 3/6 - 3/10. My question is, should I buy all of my game tickets ahead of time online to get exactly what I want, or would it be cheaper to buy them in person at the ticket offices? For regular Mariners games, I pretty much always buy at the ticket office since you avoid all of the online ticket fees. However, I don't know what the market is like down in Arizona. I would like to go to a couple games with nice box seats, and others with cheaper outfield seats. If games regularly sell out of the nice seats, I will probably just buy those ahead of time now.

Thanks for any advice, and let me just say that I miss reading LL...with a new job and new pursuits it's been hard to keep up with all of the front page post comments, fan posts, OT threads, etc. I do actually miss it, which is weird, although I see a lot of you regs on twitter as well. Great community here.

Hey kids, arguing with some folks over whether or not we should be mad at Clady for playing basketball in the offseason: I say no since they have to stay in shape somehow and basketball, while carrying some risk, is really not that bad compared to other things he could have been doing (skiing/snowboarding, rugby, etc.).

And then while I was thinking, I remembered the former BSU Bronco who broke his wrist in a freak weight room accident something like 3-5 years ago. However, I can't remember who it was. I was guessing Brad Lau 'cause I'm pretty sure it was a fullback, but I can't find any reference to it on the web. Anyone got the answer?

Hey folks,

I'm looking to buy a BSU jersey but I'm not finding a lot of options on line.  The official BroncoShop online has no jerseys at all, although I did find a couple 3rd-party stores that had replicas:

College Football Store

The Blue and Orange store

I like the first store because they have something other than the new unis this year, which I really don't like. The orange Adidias replica looks pretty good.

I'll be in Boise for Christmas but I'd like to order something before then, anyone have any suggestions? As far as numbers go, I'd be okay with Kellen (#11) which seems to be the most widely available now, but it would be super cool to find a place that offers customizable numbers - I'd really like a 25 (Korey Hall) or a 79 (Clady).

Thanks!

Hey folks, I'm looking to buy my first authentic Broncos jersey (orange 78 Clady FTW).  First I went to the shop link from DenverBroncos.com and started my order, but when I got to the page for the orange customizable authentics, the sizes were severely limited (only 46, 54, 56; I need a 50).  The price here was $269.99

I then went to nflshop.com and they have the the right size for what I need, but the price is $239.99.  Now I'm not one to complain about a lower price, but it seems weird that the prices are different and that the NLF wouldn't mandate that all the teams sell their stuff through a branded version of the main NFLshop site (MLB does this).  They are both supposed to be authentic NFL-spec jerseys, so I wonder at the price difference...

So basically I'm just looking to see if anyone has experience buying from one or both of these sources and has any advice to stay away from one or the other.  I'm itching to pull the trigger on the NFL shop site, but if the DB shop is going to restock the sizes and there is a legitimate reason to wait around for it, I could do that.

FYI I searched old FanPosts and found this nice post on spotting fake "authentic" jerseys, but nothing on this specific topic.

Thanks for any insight!

I was going to put this as a comment in the recap thread, but understandably the comments closed.

Regarding whether Jarrod has "figured something out" or "turned a corner" or the always-entertaining and mythical "tweaked his mechanics and is doing something different now."  Clearly he is the beneficiary of our new amazing outfield defense, but he's also posting some better peripherals.

He's posting a swinging strike rate of 7.5%, compared to last year's 6.0%, which is a career high from the years available on StatCorner.  His K/9 is up to 5.90 which is also a career high.  His groundballs are slightly up from career average (38.0% compared to 36.2%) and his flyballs are slightly down (40.2% / 43.5%).   LD% is pretty much right in with his career norms. His HR/FB% is at 8.5% which is only slightly lower than his career norms, which makes it seem unlikely he's going to start allowing tons of bombs.

Maybe the percentages I'm quoting here are too small to be relevant, but all this combined amounts to his tRA this year of 5.16, which is silghtly down from his past years in Seattle.  I know the basics of tRA but not the intimate details, I'm guessing the slight improvement in the above peripherals accounts for the slight dip.

So all that being said, I think it's possible in Washubrn's case he actually has figured something out with the new 2-seamer, and while I think he's getting way more credit in the MSM due to the shiny ERA (mostly defense, .248 BABIP), it seems like around these parts he's getting very little credit for some legit improvements.

Last night was fun but obviously that was way beyond his ability - let's give him some credit for actually improving a bit so far this year, though.  Maybe that improvement is too small to warrant a fanpost of this magnitude, but I felt like saying it after the repeated "he's the exact same crappy pitcher with good defense" comments.  He seems to be a slightly less-crappy pitcher with good defense.

Hi folks,

I've been really annoyed recently with what looks to be a usability bug in SBN2.0, so I'm posting to see if other people are experiencing it or if it's just my uncommon setup (Firefox + Ubuntu GNU/Linux).

It happens when you are scrolling through comments, either using Z or C+X, although I'll reference 'X' for this post, since that's how I do it.  When a new comment appears above you.  If at this point you hit X (or Z) to try to mark the comment you are currently visiting as 'read', it will actually mark the new comment above your focus as 'read', and you lose the ability to scroll to and find the new comment (other than by manually searching for it).

You can try to mitigate the bug manually by scrolling back to your current comment anytime you notice a new comment has appeared above you (you can usually notice the screen shifting down).  But then you get into a race condition, because if you hit 'X' within a very short amount of time of a new comment appearing above you, you'll usually un-mark the wrong comment.  This gets really bad in heavy game threads, as you can hit 'X', then wait for a few seconds as a bunch of new comments come in, and then end up marking a comment way above you as read which wasn't even on the page when you hit 'X'.

Anyway I'll stop rambling now as hopefully I've laid the problem out pretty clearly.  I'm surprised no one else has bitched about this, hence my suspicion it's not an issue in IE or on Windows.  In any case I should probably just talk to the SBN tech folks, but I wanted to get some feedback first.  Does SBN have an official support channel or bug-tracking site somewhere for us proles?  Or should I just funnel my feedback through the mods?  It doesn't seem like the fix should be too hard, just don't change the focus when a new comment appear above the current focus.

Thanks for reading, and let's go get 'em Erik.

I'm thinking about dropping too much money on a Felix Venezuela WBC jersey, because I think they look really sharp, and I've been needing a jersey for a while now (hopefully they don't get knocked out and he gets at least another outing, but anyway). 

This is the one at which I'm looking; however, I'm a little distressed about the size options.  Looking at this sizing chart, based on my dress shirt/pant size measurements I should probably be a medium, but in regular t-shirts I'm usually a large/XL depending on the fit.  These things always look huge, so I'm wondering if the sizes just run a little big.  Any experiences from you guys that have bought the MLB replica jerseys in the past would be great. Thanks!

I noticed it's no longer sidebar-linked (or I'm blind), although there have been edits as recently as 25 Jan:
Recent Changes
However, I can't edit any pages whether I'm logged in or not.

Mostly I just wanted to fix Ichiro's page, which still says he's a center fielder.  I'm sure there are lots of other potential improvements that could be made, but it might be best to let it die given how outdated it is.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I haven't seen or heard much about the Broncos looking for a new GM.  Quote from Bowlen's press conference:

On if he will be looking for a new general manager
"We haven’t gotten to that point yet."

So does that mean he might keep the GM responsibilities for himself?  For the historically ignorant, before Shanny took over GM duties, did the Broncos have a separate GM in place or was Bowlen making the personnel decisions?

Hey folks,

I have been lurking off and on here for a while and have decided to start posting more, I hope I can contribute positively to the discussion.  Since I haven't been around much, please let me know if any of my posts are re-hashing old subjects that have been beaten to death, etc.  Also are there any ground rules here or anything, beyond the basic SBN stuff?

I am a 12-year Broncos fan, but over that span I haven't paid much attention to the off season and personnel management, mostly I have just watched the games.  I'm hoping to change that as it will give me something to do during the NFL off-season, and I enjoy following baseball player deals and off-season shenanigans (highly recoment LL if you are a Mariners fan).

I grew up in Boise, ID and hence have a tendency to be a Plummer fanboy, which I will do my best to keep to a minimum...I have fond memories of his '04-'05 seasons (especially the win over NE, so so sweet) and try to block out his '06 collapse from memory as much as possible, though it's why he's not playing anymore.

Also being from Boise I'm a huge BSU Broncos fan and am stoked that Denver picked up Clady and he had an awesome season, and was intrigued to see Putzier back on the roster at the end of '08.

That's it, I'm in Seattle and have never been to a Broncos game in person...hoping to make the trip to Invesco sometime in the next few years.  Also if the NFL doesn't re-jigger their scheduling algorithm, Denver will come here in '10, which I will absolutely go to.

Continue reading this post »

I was in Chicago last weekend and went to two games against the Phillies at Wrigley.  Jamie Moyer pitched on Sunday but sadly my camera was dead.  I got some shots of him shagging balls during BP on Saturday though.  If you're interested here they are on facebook (don't need an account to view)

It was fun seeing Wrigley, I have never been to any of the "old" ballparks, and I was surprised at the lack of new technology - no big screen video or even a display with the batting orders.

Moyer got the W on Sunday, going 5.1 innings, giving up 2 runs, and striking out 4.

Is there an easy source to view what the current contract is for any given player.  I guess this is probably a stupid question since most people just know them off the top of their head, e.g. the Jeff Weaver deal is so incredibly bad that no one will forget how much money he's making.... But in the general case I often find myself wondering "wait how much are we paying this guy, and how long is he going to be around.."

I couldn't find anything obivous on the officially un-official seattlemariners.com players pages (which are basically just the MLB.com player pages).  baseball-reference has transaction histories, but that's all.

Yep, that's all there is to see here. 300 character fact: we beat the Yankees and scored 15 runs. we beat the Yankees and scored 15 runs. we beat the Yankees and scored 15 runs. we beat the Yankees and scored 15 runs. we beat the Yankees and scored 15 runs. we beat the Yankees and scored 15 runs.

Had to post this little gem from the PI since I hadn't seen any references to it yet... http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/baseball/312699_mbok23.html

"Broussard and Bloomquist are on the bench most days, although Bloomquist got a rare start at second base Sunday against the Angels.

When they are both on the bench, they have fallen into the routine of going to the batting cages under the stadium, where Bloomquist pitches to Broussard.

"He gets up close and throws me some really nasty pitches," Broussard said. "I think he cheats on some of them. I give Willie a lot of the credit, because he keeps me as sharp as I can be."

Bloomquist, who said he hasn't pitched since high school but would like to get an inning in the big leagues at some point, throws every pitch he can think of, including sliders, fastballs and even a curve."

Did MLB take away the Gameday thinger?  I can't find the link for it anywhere on mlb.com or seattlemariners.com...or do they not do it for spring training games...

300 character fact: One-line diaries are prohibited on Lookout Landing. Give your diary a bit more thought, then give it another shot. If you have nothing to add to your proposed diary, then it probably belongs as a comment under another appropriate thread.

The minimum is 300 characters.

Does anybody have a good picture of John Elway's first down run in SB 32 where he got spun around like a helicopter?  I know you all know what I'm talking about, but I can't find a decent picture of it on the web...if you can help me out, I'll buy you a drink the next time you're in Seattle :-)

300 character fact: Peyton Manning can rot in hell.

From the M's website recap of Saturday's game:

"Then rookie Mark Lowe took over and pitched two more scoreless frames. Lowe has now pitched 14 2/3 consecutive shutout innings since joining the Mariners on July 7."

So, since I'm kind of new to baseball, what exactly does the term "scoreless innings" entail...I know the run scored on Lowe's wild pitch is charged to Woods (although unearned since he reached on an error), but it seems like a scoreless inning would be one in which the other team didn't score...regardless of who the run is charged too.  So I guess, maybe it just means that he didn't have any runs charged to him.  

On a side note....FUCK YOU FRANK THOMAS!!!!!! (and you too Meche...god damn it).

Shin-soo choo hit a grand slam today

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I know it was still a good trade.  But seriously, how annoying is that.

I haven't been a mariner's fan for very long, why is it such a rare occurance for Ichiro to move over to CF?  It seems like a smart move, he has the speed and the arm for it.  But I figure there is just some history I have missed...

300 character Chuck Norris fact: Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer.  Too bad he has never cried. (A classic but still my favorite)

I just moved up here from Boise this weekend.  Looking forward to the Ms' (hopefully) triumphant return to Safeco on Friday.  Who else is from the general area?

300-character Chuck Norris fact: In order to speed up the wait time for death row inmates, Texas added death by roundhouse kicks to the list of acceptable methods of execution. The wait has gone down from 7 years to before you step out of the courthouse.