SB Nation User Blog: iglew

(Un)official AN Tech Request Thread

iglew — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:08:34 -0000

I don’t know what the upgrade schedule is for the SB Nation tech crew, but now that they’re done with the minor facelift and the regular season is over, I figure this is a good time to exchange notes about technical fixes and feature requests. I’ve seen occasional comments in other threads over the year, but I’m sure the techs never see them. If we put them all in one place, maybe they will.

Although the two are sometimes connected, I’d rather not let this thread be about the recent update to the look of the site. Perhaps there could be another thread for that. For this one I’m more interested in functionality than appearance.

Here's what I've collected on my wish list over the past year.

Do something about auto-format in comments.

If you type

_emphasis_

it comes out as

emphasis

This trick, along with other similar ones, was presumably intended to be helpful.

Unfortunately, there are also many undesired consequences. For example, if you write a syntactically reasonable sentence like:

His UZR was -1.5 but his wOBA was .350, so
over all I’d give him an A-

it would come out as

His UZR was ~~1.5 but his wOBA was .350, so over all I’d give him an A~~

Other examples abound.

Personally, I’m not bothered by auto-format. I have a pretty good idea of how the code algorithms work and I habitually use preview, so I am almost never tripped up by it. I do make use of it fairly often, but there’s nothing I use it for that I couldn’t do almost as easily with basic HTML tags. If I save a few keystrokes typing

_very_

instead of

<i>very</i>

I lose them right back when I have to type

&#42;sigh&#42;

to get

*sigh*

For me, the net gain is pretty trivial. For most other users I suspect the net is negative. My impression from what I’ve read in the threads is that most people dislike autoformat, and several loathe it with a passion. Few actually like it, and those who do use it, like me, wouldn’t miss it much if it were gone. (The poll below will get a fresh read on that to see if I’m right.

I can think of several ways in which auto-format could be improved, but I think the simplest solution would be just to get rid of it altogether.

Don’t mark all comments read when leaving a page.

It’s number two on this list, but for me personally this is my number one complaint and request. There are many many reasons why I might leave a thread before I’ve read all the comments, some intentional and some not. Maybe I have limited time, so I am able to read a few of the comments but not all of them. Or maybe I’m not in a hurry but the thread is so huge I need to take a break before I’m finished. Maybe I open up a thread but my browser chokes on an ad and crashes. Maybe I click on a link and forget to make it open in a separate tab. Maybe I’m in a busy game thread and just as I’m about to click "post" the screen jumps around with new comments so that my click lands on someone’s name instead, sending me to their user page. Maybe I’m just stupid and close the page when I didn’t want to.

No matter what the reason, when I come back to the thread, all the comments are marked read, even though I’ve read only some of them. This is very annoying. The feature that marks comments read is a wonderful wonderful thing and is a major part of SB Nation’s awesomeness. But the wonderfulness is rudely taken away any time it marks comments read when I haven’t read them yet.

There is almost no reason to deliberately mark all the comments read when leaving a thread. If you’re not done reading yet, you want them to remain in unread mode. If you are done reading, they’re all marked read anyway, so it doesn't matter. If you’ve lost interest and don’t intend to finish, you aren't coming back so against it doesn't matter. The only time you’d want them all marked is if you read them all but without using X and Z along the way, or in the unlikely event that you decide you don’t want to read the current comments but you do want to read any new ones that come along. And if ever that’s the case, all you have to do is type shift-A before leaving.

I don’t know how a user's comments-read data is stored, so I can’t say whether this is an easy fix or a hard one, but even if it is hard, it’s something you should figure out and make work, because it would be a big big improvement.

Different sig lines on different blogs

In the days before the SB Nation conglomeration, I had a sigline on Lookout Landing that said something like "visiting Oakland A's fan". It's useful to use the signature as a way to identify yourself, and how you would introduce yourself in a sports bar you only occasionally visit may be different from what you say to the gang where everybody knows your name.

Under the new regime, you get just one sigline and you have to use it everywhere. That sucks.

Earlier this year on LL I saw a line that I very much wanted to make my sigline there, but it was Seattle-centric, and it would confuse people if it were to appear on AN, so I couldn't use it. That sucks. I want to be able to have a different sigline on each blog.

(While you're at it, you may want to impose a maximum size on siglines. Right now, it's something enormous. Personally I don't like any sigline that goes beyond one line on a full column, but I know that would never fly with others here. Still, you could at least stop people from having a whole freakin' short story under every comment, as a few people have done.)

Subject lines for comments

An item on Lookout Landing’s style guide says:

Always use the subject line when making a comment. Even if it's one word that leads into your post. There are a few reasons for this, among them being that it makes comments easy to hide if necessary (while at work, some people don't want some of the more...shall we say, expressive images on their monitors for all to see), that it allows for easier moderation of comments, and that it just looks better.

AN is generally more permissive than LL, but I for one wish that subject lines were used more consistently here.

I love the feature for collapsing comments. (For those who don’t know, if you click on the subject line of a comment, it collapses down to just the subject line. Then if you click again the full comment returns.) I use this with great regularity. It’s especially useful on game threads with lots of pictures, but I’ll frequently reduce long text comments as well. I just like to tidy up the page and make it so I don’t have to scroll so far on a long thread.

But if a comment has no subject line, this does not work. Also, if you have your default comment format set to "closed" on your user settings – I experimented with this for a while, but am not using it now – any comment with no subject line disappears completely and can’t be retrieved at all.

Everything would work better if all comments had subject lines. However, I know my peers on AN, and I know that if someone tried to post without a subject line and got an error message saying "you must provide a subject line", that would piss people off. So instead of doing that, why not have a default subject line that always fills in? Any time someone posts without a subject line, AN makes one that says "..." or "[no subject]" or whatever.

Et cetera

Keep screen focused on highlighted comment. I've only noticed this on fast-moving gamethreads, but when a bunch of new comments come in, it makes things move around on the screen. If I'm in the process of reading unread comments, this can be confusing because it bumps my current comment right off the screen, forcing me to scroll around to figure out where the heck I was. Is it possible to make it so the highlighted comment stays visible?

Prevent excessive consecutive FanPosts. There have been a few times where an enthusiastic newcomer comes along and proceeds to write three or four FanPosts in one afternoon, shoving others off the front-page list prematurely. We don't want to limit participation too much, but I wonder if it isn't a good idea to impose a mild limit, like maybe no more than two per day. Or if it's possible, arrange it so that if you do post multiple successive fanposts, you bump your own off the list, not someone else's.

Underline. I would like to see <u> supported for underlines. (The HTML tag is fine, no need for auto-formatting.)

SF Gate links. If you include a URL in a comment, AN knows to convert it to a link. Ideally, posters would use the link tool instead, but since they often don't, this is a handy backup feature. However, the feature fails on SF Gate links. I think it has to do with the "=/" characters that appear in every SF Gate URL. AN thinks the URL ends with the equals sign, so the link is busted.

'Clear' button for new comment. If I type a reply to someone and then on second thought decide not to post, I click the "cancel" button and it's gone. If I'm typing a fresh comment at the bottom of the thread, there is no "cancel" button until I preview. Then if I cancel, it only makes the preview go away, but the text I typed is still there in the window until I deliberately delete it. I want a "clear" button to delete the rejected text.

Seconds in time stamp. There have been a few times in game threads when it was debated who said something first, where it would be fun to see the time stamp to the second. But maybe that's excessive....

That's everything on my list. If you have others, or further comments on any of these, please add them in the comments.

Poll

What do you think of AN’s auto-formatting in comments?

I think it’s just fine how it is.

3 votes

I think it could be good with some improvements, and maybe an instruction guide.

5 votes

I don’t mind it, but I wouldn’t miss it if it were gone.

9 votes

I dislike it. They should get rid of it.

3 votes

I loathe it with a passion. Kill it, kill it!

7 votes

27 votes | Poll has closed

Korach calls A's play 'terrible', 'unacceptable'

iglew — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:37:42 -0000

I've managed to extract from the MLB audio archive the moment where A's radio announcer Ken Korach expresses his disgust with the A's performance. The play that triggers the response is the one last night where a high fly ball dropped between Cust and Kennedy, but listening to the whole broadcast you can tell that's just the culminating event after an evening full of poor play.

To those who don't know Korach, it won't sound very impressive. His words are far less extreme than what we hear in game threads every day. But those who listen to the radio broadcast regularly know that Ken is almost never critical of the A's — not because he's an aggressive homer, but just because he's such a mellow and good-natured guy that he never has a harsh word for anyone at all.

Leaving out Vince's comments and Ken's calling of the subsequent play, here's what Ken said:

Boy, this has been a terrible performance by the A's tonight. That ball has got to be caught. And well-deserved boos cascading down on the field from the fans. ...
This is just unacceptable. ...
People are paying good money to come to the ballpark, Vince.

For those who want to listen, I've uploaded it as a WAV file. Since I'm only quoting a short passage as an illustration, I trust this won't violate MLB's "any rebroadcast" restriction.

(If anyone wants to keep it for posterity, you'll need to download the file and store it somewhere else, since I expect to remove it from my server after about a week. I've got a MP3 version, too, but I ran out of space on my limited Earthlink account and couldn't fit both of them.)

Beane and Geren: best friends

iglew — Mon, 25 May 2009 07:13:11 -0000

Beane's and Geren's friendship gets mentioned a lot on AN. It comes up frequently in game threads and game recap discussion -- especially on days when the A's lose -- but for all the mentions, there's very little real discussion. I think the topic warrants serious thought, and not just the unwarranted assumptions and snide remarks I see in the game threads.

For starters, some background information is in order. Everyone knows that Bob Geren was Billy Beane's "best man", but no one seems to know quite when the wedding was or how it aligned with Geren's career. I'd love to provide all the details, but unfortunately my own information is incomplete. I'll fill in what I can, and if anyone out there knows better, I hope you'll enlighten the rest of us.

History

This article from 2006 says that Geren and Beane were both high school baseball stars at the same time in San Diego. The article also specifies that they weren't friends at the time, though I haven't found another source that specifies exactly when they did become friends.

Geren was a first-round draft pick out of high school in 1979. Beane was selected in the 1980 draft, but he fell to the lower rounds because it was widely assumed he'd choose to attend college. (Stanford was actively recruiting Beane for football, envisioning him as the quarterback who would succeed John Elway when he graduated two years later.) The Mets took a flyer on Beane in the 23rd round and lucked out when Beane decided to skip college and sign after all.

Both Geren and Beane had lackluster careers as players. Geren toiled in the minor leagues for a decade before finally making the show in 1988. Beane, on the other hand, flamed out early, and his final season was 1989. Beane's and Geren's playing careers thus overlapped for only two years, and they didn't play for the same team. (Beane spent time with the Mets, Twins, Tigers, and A's; Geren played for the Yankees and the Padres.)

In 1994, Beane joined the A's as assistant GM under Sandy Alderson and would go on to succeed him as GM in 1988. Geren retired from playing after the 1993 season. In 1995 he got his start as a manager in the Red Sox farm system. Geren was a protegé of Bob Schaefer (whom he would later appoint as bench coach for his first year managing the A's), so when Schaefer left the Red Sox after the 1998 season, Geren was cleaned out with him.

At the start of 2000 Beane needed to hire a manager for his AAA affiliate. Under new ownership the team had relocated from Vancouver to Sacramento renaming itself the River Cats. Geren had a good record in the lower minors for the Red Sox, which presumably made him a plausible candidate. At the same time, their shared history no doubt helped put his name on Billy Beane's radar. Even aside from friends, when selecting players Beane has a history of being particularly attuned to guys from Southern California, and most especially San Diego (or Fullerton).

I wish I had a better sense of exactly how close Beane and Geren were at this time. Following their career paths, I don't see any time they could have been in the same city before 1999. Undoubtedly they were aware of each other and had contact through being in the same business, but it doesn't seem like there was any opportunity for them to become close before that. This is just speculation, but based on the facts I've seen, I'd say the most plausible scenario is that they had some friendly contact prior to this, which helped put Geren to the top of the list for the River Cats job, but then it was only after that hiring, when they were in close proximity and working more closely together that they truly became good friends.

Billy Beane's first marriage was some time in the 1980s. He has a daughter from that marriage who I believe is now in her early 20s. I assume that the wedding where Geren served as best man must have been the one between Billy and his current wife Tara. I can't find any record of when that was, but I have a vague recollection of it being background news some time when I was aware of Beane as the A's GM, in which case it must have been some time after 2000. (If anyone out there remembers when the wedding was, please mention it in the comments.)

Geren managed the River Cats for three seasons, 2000-2002, and had a very good record. Between the latter two years he also managed the Licey Tigres in the Dominican winter league, winning the league championship that year (the same year when Eric Byrnes was the MVP). After that he moved onto the coaching staff in Oakland, rotating through various positions.

Business

One thing that has bothered me a lot in the game threads is the assertion without evidence that Beane's decision to hire Geren in 2007, and more importantly his lack of decision to fire him in 2009, is due primarily or entirely to their friendship. In his "Dear Billy Beane" letter last weekend, Nico called the friendship a "built-in problem" in that if Geren "didn't turn out to be good at his job it would create an awkward situation". Many many others have echoed the idea that the friendship is an obstacle to Geren being fired. Some take that several steps further and insinuate that Beane knows that Geren should be fired but refuses to do it out of personal loyalty to his friend.

One of saner comments on this topic came from ohtobe21likehuston in one of the game threads. He said:

I always tell my friends that I will hire them but they should be ready for me to expect a much stronger effort than I do from other employees because of our friendship.

This is exactly right. Anyone who has ever been involved in hiring knows that when you get a friend a job you have to be careful. You have to plan for the possibility that some day you might be involved in your friend losing that job. Business is business and friendship is friendship, so if you want to make sure that one isn't going to ruin the other, you need to talk about it ahead of time and make sure everyone understands. Yes, you want to help out your friend and give him a chance, but at the same time he needs to know that it's his responsibility to prove himself, and he can't expect your friendship to make you back him up when his own work record doesn't. More important, you need to know that if a situation like that does come up, you'll both see it as just business and won't let it ruin the friendship. If you don't have that kind of understanding going in, then you don't hire him in the first place.

This is really pretty basic. So basic that it borders on absurd to assume that any successful business person would somehow neglect to have such a discussion. And yet that's exactly what is implied by Nico's remark about an "awkward situation", not to mention some of the nastier comments.

Does anyone really believe that Beane and Geren didn't consider this when Geren interviewed for the manager's position in fall of 2006? There is little job security in baseball. Even more than in most businesses, if you don't produce, you get sacked. Geren had been managing for six years and playing for 14 years before that. Beane's experience is similar. Both of them have taken part in scores of discussions that go, "nothing personal, but you're not getting the job done, so we're gonna have to let you go," and from both sides of the desk even. They know that's how it goes in baseball.

Of course they are aware of this, and of course they discussed it prior to Geren's hiring. Indeed, they probably discussed it before he was hired for the River Cats, too. Sometimes the right business decision is to give the manager the ax. The possibility always exists that that situation is going to come up for Geren. If Geren is your friend, before you hire him, you make sure that he understands this, so that if you do have to fire him, it doesn't ruin your friendship.

Conclusion

If you want to argue that the team is in a rut, that Geren is part of the problem, and that he therefore needs to be fired, have at it. I would even agree with that argument. (Although I'm not as adamant as many here, and I don't think I have any special insight that Billy Beane lacks, based on what I do know, I would like to see Geren fired and I think it would be good for the team.) If you want to further argue that it's Beane's job as GM to see that Geren needs to be fired, and by failing to actually fire him, Beane is failing at his job, go ahead and make that argument, too.

But unless you're prepared to back it up, don't imply or insinuate that the reason Geren got the job is because he's Billy's "best man" or that the reason Beane hasn't fired Geren yet is he's afraid of losing a friend, because first of all that's probably not true, second you have no way of knowing whether it's true, and third even if it is true, it doesn't matter. If Geren is doing a crappy job as a manager, he's just as crappy whether he's Billy's friend or not. If Beane is failing as a GM because he won't fire Geren, he is failing regardless of whether his reason for not firing has anything to do with the friendship.

Poll

If Geren does get fired some time during this season, the next A's manager should be:

Tony DeFrancesco

34 votes

Tye Waller

10 votes

Jamie Quirk

20 votes

Orel Hershiser

47 votes

Carney Lansford

60 votes

Todd Steverson

14 votes

someone else (please specify)

24 votes

RICKEY!!!

72 votes

281 votes | Poll has closed

New Trade Diary

iglew — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:31:42 -0000

There were a zillion trade diaries yesterday, and yet this morning when I return to post my thoughts, it’s not obvious where they should go. I don’t want to fill up the DLD with trade talk, since that should be a haven for readers who don’t want to discuss the trade. The big trade diaries have all been pushed down from the front page. There’s a few new little trade diaries, but none are even close to getting enough recommendations to make the top list.

So for lack of any better place to add my comments, I’ll just make a new trade diary.

I was late to the party last night, so it took me all evening to get caught up on all the discussions, but I did manage to read (almost) everything. My next-day observations:

1. The characterizations of Billy Beane are exaggerated on both sides. Obviously the folks who are saying "he’s sold out the team" or "he’s lost his frickin’ mind" are exaggerating in the heat of the moment. But the supposedly sober folks on the other side saying "you must trust Billy, when has he ever let you down?" are also exaggerating. The truth is Beane’s record isn’t immaculate. The Tim Hudson trade was a complete bust for us, and the Arthur Rhodes experiment did not go well at all. Those aren't the only examples. Like anyone, Beane has made mistakes, and he’ll make more. Maybe this trade will be one of them. You can’t logically conclude that just because Beane did it, it must be right.

On the other hand, he does have a very good track record over all. I see no reason to believe Beane has departed from his usual practice of perpetual reload. He must think this trade will improve the team. Maybe he’s right, or maybe he’s wrong. He’s not perfect, but he’s not stupid either.

2. Way too many people are stuck on the idea of one GM fleecing the other. The way a GM succeeds at trading is not by suckering fools into making stupid deals; it’s by creating a series of win-win trades. The point is to make your own team better, and if in order to do so you have to make someone else’s team better, that’s fine. You both still gain ground against the other 28 teams.

The fleece trades are memorable, but they’re the exceptions. Even when they do happen, I think it’s more by accident than design. Both sides probably evaluated the trade as reasonably close to even, but there’s always uncertainty. Sometimes the uncertainty all tips in one direction and in hindsight it looks like one guy got robbed.

I think the idea that certain GMs are "dumb" is greatly exaggerated on the Internet — a function of the I’m-a-genius-and-everyone-else-is-a-moron mentality that pervades Internet commentary — but to whatever extent some GMs are less savvy than others, Jim Hendry is not one of the dumb ones. I doubt that either Beane or Hendry believes he fleeced the other. I think they both see it as a win-win trade which marginally improves their team.

3. Because of Rich Harden, this trade has more uncertainty than most. This trade is all about risk, and who wants to assume it. Would you rather have a 10% chance at $900, or a 90% chance at $100? Mathematically they’re the same, but which you prefer depends on your current financial situation.

Everybody knows that Harden is a high-upside, high-risk guy. The risk and the upside can be evaluated and set against a package of roughly equal overall value but with different risk distribution. Guys like Gallagher and Murton are the other side of the coin: they’re more likely to be useful contributors on an ongoing basis, but less likely to be great. I think the two sides of this trade are probably nearly equal in total value; the key difference is the distribution of risk. For whatever reason, the Cubs have decided that they want to gamble right now, and Beane has decided that the A’s want to sell risk and buy security. To me, that’s the interesting proposition of this trade, which one might agree or disagree with, not which team came out ahead.

4. Several people have commented that they hope Harden’s health takes a sudden dive and he’s terrible for the Cubs. This is the logical conclusion of the fleece mentality: If Harden sucks then it’s, "Ha ha we fleeced you. We win, yay for us." But if Harden is awesome then it’s, "Oh no, you fleeced us," and hang our heads in shame.

I think this attitude is completely wrong. The trade is done. Harden is off our team now. If he goes on to be terrible, that doesn’t make our team any better; if he goes on to be fabulous, that doesn’t make our team any worse. The only way in which Harden’s future performance affects our team now is how it affects us in future trades. When Beane has a great player and wants to trade him, people are naturally suspicious. They ask, "Why is Beane unloading him? Is something wrong with him? Does Beane know something I don’t?" If they’re afraid, they won’t trade. If other GMs are reluctant to trade with us, that’s a bad thing.

Harden’s future makes a difference in this respect. If his arm falls off tomorrow, as many on this blog have openly wished, when future GMs ask themselves the questions above, they’re going to think, "What if it’s like that time when Beane traded Harden and he was a big dud? Am I going to get ripped off like that?" On the other hand, if Harden goes on to be great, they will think, "Yeah, but maybe it’ll be an opportunity like Harden. The Cubs came out great with that trade."

We want Harden to do well in Chicago. His success won’t make our team any worse, but it will make our trading options better for the future.

An open letter to Bob Geren

iglew — Sat, 24 May 2008 07:37:03 -0000

(One won lost won mentioned this idea in response to my comment on the game wrap-up thread. I was inspired. Hence this post. If you agree, "sign" the letter by voting in the poll. If you don't agree, don't vote.)

Dear Bob Geren,

Next Tuesday, May 27, is Frank Thomas's 40th birthday. On that day, the A's are scheduled to start a series against the Toronto Blue Jays, Frank's former team. The media is bound to notice that and give it a little attention.

We, the undersigned, believe that we know the perfect way to celebrate Frank's birthday. We believe he should bat lead-off in that game. According to Baseball Reference, Frank has never started a game batting lead-off. We think he'd get a big kick out of it.

Now I know what you're thinking: "Lead off? Frank Thomas? He's a great hitter, but he's not at all what you want in a lead-off hitter." Yeah, so what? It's not like any of the other guys on the team are classic lead-off hitters either. (Seriously, Kurt Suzuki?) And Frank's hot right now. So what the heck, why not just give it a try?

According to Baseball Reference, although Frank has never started a game at lead-off, he's had two plate appearances in the #1 slot as a pinch-hitter. And you know what? In one of them he walked, and in the other he hit a home run! Of course, we here at Athletics Nation recognize what a ridiculously small sample size that is. Still, you can't argue he hasn't had success there.

Most of all, baseball is about entertainment. Sure, you want to win the game, too. We're all A's fans here. We want the A's to win every game. We would never recommend you do something stupid that would lessen the team's chance of winning. But on a call like this, where maybe it would work or maybe it wouldn't, but strategically it's not likely to make a big difference at all, sometimes you just gotta go with what would be the most fun. Lineup order is mostly psychological anyway, and the guys on the team would love it. Big Frank batting lead-off on his birthday? What's not to like?

If for no other reason, you have to do it because of that: It would be really really funny.

Yours truly,

Poll

Signed:

(I agree, and I've signed my name in the comments.)

30 votes

(I'm an anonymous lurker, but I agree, too.)

49 votes

79 votes | Poll has closed

Team with only three names

iglew — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:03:29 -0000

In yesterday's game thread, Future Ed asked, "How many names are needed for a complete line up? 4?" and he proposed a lineup made up of Suzukis, Sweeneys, Ramirezes, and Sanchezes. I'm sure one could complete a lineup card with just three names, it's only a question of how deep one has to dig into the minor leagues to do it.

This suggests an amusing puzzle: What's the best team you can construct using only three last names? Go ahead and fill out the roster as far as you like, but I guarantee you'll be scraping the bottom of the barrel by the time you reach 25. Pitching counts, too. Try to come up with enough staff to get through a playoff series.

No restrictions on where the players come from, but every player is considered in terms of his talent right now. So if you want to promote someone from the minors (or college, or Japan) or bring someone out of retirement, go ahead ... but if he's not in the big leagues right now, it's probably because he isn't that good.

Here's my best effort:

Lineup:
• Hanley Ramirez, SS (Florida)
• Aramis Ramirez, 3B (Cubs)
• Manny Ramirez, LF (Boston)
• Melky Cabrera, CF (Yankees)
• Miguel Cabrera, 1B (Detroit)
• Ramon Hernandez, C (Baltimore)
• Orlando Cabrera, DH (White Sox)
• Asdrubal Cabrera, 2B (Cleveland)
• Jolbert Cabrera, RF (now playing in Japan, I think)

Bench:
• Luis Hernandez, 2B/SS (Baltimore)
• Alexei Ramirez, CF/2B/SS (White Sox)
• Yordany Ramirez, OF (Houston, AAA scrub)
• Anderson Hernandez, 2B (Mets, AAA scrub)
• Max Ramirez, C (Texas, AA prospect)

Rotation:
• Felix Hernandez (Seattle)
• Daniel Cabrera (Baltimore)
• Livan Hernandez (Minnesota)
• Horacio Ramirez (unemployed!)

Bullpen:
• Ramon Ramirez (Kansas City)
• Edwar Ramirez (Yankees)
• Fernando Hernandez (White Sox sent him back to AA)
• Erasmo Ramirez (now in AAA somewhere, I think)

I'm afraid I don't really have a fourth starter -- not until Orlando Hernandez comes off the DL, anyway. Ho Ram is terrible, but I don't have any better ideas. There's another Ramon Ramirez in Cincinnati's AA rotation. I suppose I could give him a try. My bullpen is also pretty thin, though there's probably a few more guys I'm not thinking of. (Baltimore's Fernando Cabrera is also on the DL.)

The top of my lineup looks great, but it falls off pretty dramatically at the end. If it were just the lineup, I could improve it by dumping Hernandezes for Lees (Derrek! Carlos! Cliff!), but then my rotation suffers. It's bad enough I don't have a fourth starter; I'm not willing to go out there without even a third.

Lots of other tempting names out there -- Rodriguez, Gonzalez, Jones, Johnson, and probably more I'm not thinking of -- but I couldn't get them to add up to a whole team.

Can you do better?

(Warning: If you take this challenge seriously, be prepared to waste a lot of time. I thought it would be fun to play around with it for a lark, and then the next thing I knew three hours had gone by....)

Poll: Should you be required to preview before you post?

iglew — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 02:56:16 -0000

This hasn't caused a great deal of discussion on AN because we're used to it. Before the upgrade, it was impossible to post a comment or reply without clicking preview first. After the upgrade, it's still impossible to post a comment or reply without clicking preview first. Nothing has changed in that regard, so most of us haven't even thought about it.

Preview became mandatory with the Ajax upgrade, which was implemented at about this time last year. That's the same upgrade that gave us other features, like recommending diaries and adding tags. AN and a few others got Ajax, but many other SB Nation blogs did not. If you go to one of the latter, such as Lookout Landing, you'll notice that it lacks a lot of things you were used to from old AN (eg, recommended diaries). Folks on LL have always been able to post without previewing, so they think of that as normal.

Now, with the current upgrade, some readers from LL and other non-Ajax sites have come over here to check out the new system, and for them being required to preview is a new thing. It got mentioned in one of the threads here, and it's been discussed quite a bit at LL.

The main complaint seems to be that it slows down posting. That prompted the observation that it's really just one more click so it's not a big deal. That prompted the observation that for the exact same reason that it's no big deal, it doesn't accomplish much either: Anyone who doesn't want to preview his or her comment won't look at it anyway, and making them click a second time won't make them. By the same token, anyone who does want to preview still has that option if it's not mandatory. I pointed out that in case of an egregious error -- like if you accidentally bracketed a big chunk of text with "<" and ">" causing it to be swallowed by the software, or if a picture you inserted is much more ginormous than you realized -- mandatory preview can force you to notice even if you don't reread your words.

Opinion at LL is strongly against mandatory preview, but they're open-minded enough to realize that, unlike us, they aren't used to it. Someone there wants to hear objective opinion from those of us who are actually used to it. Does it bother us? Do we like it? Do we care at all? Hence this poll.

Important: Since the purpose of this poll is to gauge the experience of those of us who are used to mandatory preview, please don't choose any of the top five answers (the ones that say "I'm used to it") unless you're at least a semi-regular user of AN or another Ajax SB Nation blog. For the rest of you, so that you don't feel disenfranchised, there are three more choices at the bottom (the ones that say "I'm not used to it").

Poll

How do you feel about being required to click preview before you can post?

I'm used to it, and I think it's much better this way.

18 votes

I'm used to it. I prefer it this way, but it's no big deal.

25 votes

I'm used to it, and I have no preference.

10 votes

I'm used to it. I would prefer we didn't have to, but it's no big deal.

13 votes

I'm used to it, and I still hate it.

7 votes

I'm not used to it, and I think I would like it if this requirement were imposed on us.

3 votes

I'm not used to it, and I think I wouldn't care if it changed for us.

1 votes

I'm not used to it, and I think I would dislike it if this requirement were imposed on us.

8 votes

85 votes | Poll has closed

Poll of polls

iglew — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 02:31:15 -0000

Over on the fanpost about the latest format updates, there was an inquiry about making poll votes public. In case you didn't notice, in the new AN, you can go to any user's profile, look in the "recent activity" section, and find out how they voted in any poll. Some have questioned whether this is a good idea.

Responding to the inquiry, Clockwerks explained,

We didn't realize that people would want to keep their vote private. We'd often see people commenting after voting, explaining why they voted one way or the other. If a lot of people don't like the public votes, we can get rid of that.

So let's find out:

Poll

Should votes in polls on AN be public or private?

It's very important to me that they are private.

23 votes

I prefer private, but it's not a big deal.

77 votes

I have no preference.

47 votes

I prefer public, but it's not a big deal.

31 votes

It's very important to me that they are public.

13 votes

191 votes | Poll has closed

Center field defense over the years

iglew — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 22:02:54 -0000

I'm not sure this really warrants its own diary, but I have a question and I don't see any other likely diary to put it in.

In the course of an unrelated discussion over on Athletics Nation, I happened to be thinking about Adam Jones and whether he'll be traded. And then I'm thinking that even though I understand both Jones and Ichiro are awesome, and I totally get why you'd want to hang on to both of them, it's kind of a waste to have two guys on the same team who can play good defense in CF, when so many other teams out there are resigned to picking the least bad of their corner outfielders to play in the middle. Surely there's better value to be had by trading one of them to another team that will make full use of the defense?

And then I started thinking, why the heck did you guys waste Ichiro in RF for so long, when statistically you know he's going to save far more runs playing in CF. But then I remembered ... well, Jeremy Reed, whatever other problems he had, was pretty good defensively. And so was Randy Winn. And Mike Cameron. And Junior when he was young and uninjured. And holy crap, have you guys ever had bad defense in center field?? Maybe I'm forgetting someone, but I can't think of any.

Or maybe I just have low standards. I root for the team that fills CF with guys like Nick Swisher, Eric Byrnes, and Terrence Long. They're decent players (well, maybe not T-Long...), but they're not exactly defensive whizzes. And that's not even counting this past season when injuries made us play something like 15 different guys in CF.

Are my standards of CF defense unreasonably low? Or are yours unreasonably high because you're spoiled? Maybe past-his-prime Randy Winn seemed lousy to you. Maybe you think Adam Jones' defense is no big deal.

So my question is: When was the last time that the Mariners had what you would consider sub-par defense in center field? I don't mean just the occasional sub when the starter needs a day off or is on the 15-day DL. I mean a time when your real center fielder isn't very good defensively.

What would a unicorn do?

iglew — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 21:11:41 -0000

An illustrative comment on yesterday's DLD contemplates how Mark Ellis might handle a broom-wielding confrontation.

Looking at the options, I can't help thinking that "chase a rainbow" sounds more like something Travis Buck might do.

It's a slow day, so maybe this warrants a new discussion thread.

Which A's player (or former A's player) do you think is most likely to do each of the following:

Chase a rainbow
Leap across a ravine
Impale evil things
Graze on honeysuckle
Race the wind
Nuzzle a newborn
Believe in miracles
Prance through a waterfall
Majestically gallop
Whinny and rear
Pose on a windy cliff
Frolic in a meadow