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If there are three things statheads (sorry, stat zombies) hate, they are youngsters, bargain-basement/scrapheap pickups, and major superstars.
And explains why you're ignoring Dan Uggla.
ZING!
yea, that is kinda what I meant. I mean seriously this is considered an anti-stat head argument? even in Zombie world it still seems like the same kind of argument that stat-zombies really push for.
I'm thinking this guy is upset that his team isn't getting the press it should be for their record, and someone may have pointed out his teams pyth record for a reason to not take them as seriously as he wants, and that probably put him over the edge.
Well someone should tell him that us stat zombies are not exactly known for our control of the sports media.
Nah, he's just bitter that he never got past Algebra 2
I still don't get it one bit.
"I don't alway eat flesh, but when I do, I prefer brains"
I thought the Marlins were the team with the most variability in predictions. (along with the Giants and I think Indians/Royals) I seem to remember people picking them in every spot except last, as the potential to be this years version of the Rays (young team taking a few chances with some maybe not ready for prime time players who could get breakout years from all)
I admit I had them fourth behind the Phils, Mets and Braves, but it's not like I'm considered an expert or anything, and I still gave them credit for possibly being good, just uncertainty with their ability to breakout. And considering that their pitching really still hasn't panned out, they still have some potential upside to go.
Perhaps is they had more than 12 fans show up per night someone would take notice. The fact that the Marlins are in the thick of the abject mediocrity that is the NL Wildcard chase doesn't exactly sing hosannahs to their skill and grace. The Marlins are what, exactly as good as the Braves? But only if you add in the first half Braves where Jeff Francoeur ate babies in RF? They're a mediocre team with a decent starting rotation. Unless they play within driving distance of Bristol that's not going to get national media attention.
One of us! One of us! One of us!
I normally avoid the pinata threads, but this line makes me think that I should check them out more often.
This guy has confused stat zombies with Bizarro statheads -- "Me have own apartment and don't own computer. Me love RBIs and productive outs."
Indeed. Larry Beinfest is basically Billy Beane, but with half the payroll and a championship on his resume'.
Let's tell it like it is: the lack of respect has almost everything to do with Jeffrey Loria being reviled by most of the sabermetric community.
agreed, this is what I honestly think people are thinking of when they say 'stats' zombies or whatever. I despise the Marlins strategy because it destroys any momentum of fan following, which to me is part of the appeal of being a fan of a team. The "if things go right this year...." line of thinking that 24+ team go into the season thinking could happen. And with the crapshoot of the playoffs, quality of a team is pretty much meaningless once you make it into the playoffs.
I'm spoiled because my team is in a long cycle of success, but even teams that are on down years like the A's have seen a couple of recent back to back seasons where they honestly thought they had a chance.
Is there actually a lack of respect for the Marlins from the sabermetric community?
does this guy think he's a good writer? if so someone needs to hand him some books written by 12 year olds so he can understand the level of writing that he is exhibiting and that he needs to step up his game if he wants to consider himself a decent writer. Seriously I have no problem with being a blogger and not being a really good writer, but to claim to be good, you really need to be at least freshmen high school level of acceptable quality.
I think the Loria hate has more to do with him doing everything he can to destroy major league baseball in two cities.
Self-submitting pinãtas are the best.
I like stats, and I like the Marlins (I am Dan Ugglas #1 fan, after all). I have quite an aversion to zombies though, even tired old vampires are far more versatile film monsters. There's only one way to go with zombies, and that has been done quite enough now, thank you.
I guess he's a douchehole, but I maybe think of Loria about once a year.
Somebody needs to re-watch Return of the Living Dead.
Nope. The lack of exposure is because they aren't consistently excellent and Michael Lewis didn't write a book about them. Also, the A's had a five year stretch where only the Yankees won more games, they had 3 different 20 game winners, had 2 different MVP's, had a couple of 100 win teams and a 20 game winning streak. Doing all this stuff over a period of several years tends make a team famous.
And there's not a poster here who doesn't respect Larry Beinfest.
Winning Pct = .5 + 1.21*OPSDifferential
The Marlins have a .008 differential this year for a .50968 predicted winning percentage. For a 115 games, that would be 58.61 wins. They have 61. So 2.39 more wins than expected. Does not seem like a big deal. The standard error of the regression was 1.54 wins per season. So the Marlins are one win beyond that. We should also wait until the season is over to judge them.
I love zombie movies, way more than vampire movies. I feel the exact opposite, there are multiple ways to go with zombies, you have the sprinting zombies (ala.28 days later) which I don't care as much for, you have comedies(Shaun of the dead) you have political (almost all have some type of political undertones--- Joe Dantes Homecoming is freaking great, even if the Ann Coultier character is a little too over the top) Vampires are boring most of the time, and now with them becoming little girl fanfiction they have become even worse.
Sure there are cool vampire movies, but now it seems that they have fallen into a few cliched formats.
That, and my restless undeadness.
My favorite part is the photo of someone wearing an under armor cap down the right hand side of the page (the one with the black border). The image is 3264px × 2448px (scaled to 240px × 180px) with a file size of 3752 KB. nice to know he needed 3700 KB to show a picture where 1-2KB would have sufficed.
Concur. Zombies > Vampires, and it's not close.
"In what country other than this polarized one called the United States could someone with the flimsy resume of George W. Bush just "decide" one day that he wanted to be president and have the werewithal to make it happen?
We're seeing the same thing now with Sarah Palin. Former John McCain adviser Mike Murphy said (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that "if she looked like Golda Meir, no one would be talking about her"; but she's pretty; she's charming; she's a religious nut; and, most importantly, she's a pliable and manipulatable entity who isn't bright enough to realize that she's little more than an empty vessel being used by the men in the smoke filled rooms (the Dick Cheneys of the world) to regain power."
Becoming? Vampire stories have been soft porn for girls since at least Anne Rice (though probably before that.) This is not a new direction in the genre. What's new today is that the niche market once held by Harlequin Romances (dark mysterious stranger appears from the sea, unappreciated damsel gets appreciated all but good.) has replaced "dark mysterious stranger from the sea" with "vampire, but a good one that feels bad about eating people." God, I hate vampire porn.*
*except Buffy; Buffy ruled.
Most vampires are lame.
The original Nosferatu is, however, still creepy as ####.
Vampires used to be alright, but the new hip vampire culture is just moronic. I mean they can even go out in daylight, that's just cheating.
I will once again reference South Park to further explain this. Vamps vs Goths
Somebody needs to play "Left 4 Dead".
By the way, the best zombie book out there is "World War Z". I HIGHLY recommend it.
I prefer zombies over vampires, but my guilty pleasure right now is "True Blood".
The "coming out of the coffin" concept (regular vampires attempt to go mainstream) is great.
They don't cheat on any of the legendary problems with vampires, except the whole idea of a cross being a deterent (they just see it as a geometric object).
I still like the original film version of that story: "The Last Man on Earth", with Vincent Price. It does a good job of splitting the difference between the two.
Do you mean I Am Legend? The novella also has a much better ending, one in which the title actually makes sense.
The movie was pretty good up until the last 20 minutes or so.
So are manatees, tapirs and platypuses.
Man, I miss Barry Bonds.
Wait, what were we talking about? Oh, tasty brains. Yum.
I've figgered out how to activate and work my Twitter account (to a point). It's under the name PRINCE_OF_NY if anyone wants to give themselves to the dark side and join the growing "family".
BOSS-Paul (The Prince of New York) Lebowitz
UNDERBOSS-Hanna The Equestrian
CONSIGLIERE-Jane (She-Fan) Heller
MID-WEST CAPO-Jeff (Red State) Lung
MID-WEST UNDERBOSS-Allen (Blue State) Krause
ENFORCER-Frightening Barbara Lebowitz
SOLDIERS-Joe the Sometime Stat Zombie, Gabriel, Franklin, David and Norm
Do you mean I Am Legend? The novella also has a much better ending, one in which the title actually makes sense.
Right. "I am Legion" would be a demonic possession novel, which is an entirely different genre.
One of the scariest zombie stories (while not a traditional undead-staggering-the-earth-for-brains zombie story) is Pet Sematary. Nothing like a good old fashioned Indian burian mound for creepy zombie mischief. Horrible movie, though.
I just can't take the "killer children" genre seriously. I end up just rolling my eyes and laughing.
Just with Buffy and to an extent Blade vampires became too easy to defeat as a species, and all the sudden you needed to go in a different direction. (sure Anne Rice set the blueprint, but she was at least paying as much to the story and making it a cohesive universe as anything else) now you have pseudo writers who are more about making the badboy/good girl romance story but taking it up a notch. (and yes go to the sci-fi section in book stores and you see a ton of these books, hastily thrown together harlequin romance crap masquerading as horror/sci-fi/detective fiction.) Of course Vampires have always had an element of romance, but not this silly little kid crap that is now being pawned off as writing.
It can be creepy when done well. This example has always seemed effective when I've watched it.
Cronos is pretty good, too. And I liked The Fearless Vampire Killers, although I know a lot of people don't.
FTFY. Seriously, who the hell DOESN'T hate Loria?
I always assumed that the Vampires were Robert Rodriguez's contribution to the film.
there was a sequel to that? I might have to see that.
not really sure if I would classify that as killer children genre though, that is a somewhat different theme. I'm thinking of the Good Son, Omen, Children of the Corn or even Chucky is more in line with killer children genre.
Vampire horror genre is the one genre really hurt by increased in quality special effects, the directors now want to show lots and lots of spectacular horrible deaths, but the more vampire deaths in a movie reduces the fear factor involved with the species. (again thanks to Buffy---biggest flaw with the show was that Vampires were massively reduced in power/effectiveness)
Zombies are designed to die by the hundreds, that is exactly what they are supposed to do, Vampires are not. (and it's nice to see that outside of underworld, there really hasn't been a movie out there that treated Warewolves as cannon fodder like Blade and others treat Vampires)
The abrupt genre switch was by far my favorite part of that movie. Why doesn't that happen more?
I have to say, I enjoyed this as well. It was sort of a \"#### you" to the audience, but it was a \"#### you" in good spirits.
Well that's only a very small fraction of the story, near the end. The scariest parts of the book are more about the motivations of the main character.
Cronos is pretty good, too. And I liked The Fearless Vampire Killers, although I know a lot of people don't.
Martin is a great vampire movie. I also really enjoyed Let the Right One In.
my girlfriend hates him, because just the mere mention of his name gets me to go into a rant. She can only name one major league owner (not Steinbrenner, not DeWitt) off the top of her head because of my rabid hatred for this guy, who in my opinion is as big of a criminal as any in prison.
I can't watch From Dusk til Dawn, because half way through a decent film Tarantino bursts in and screams "and then there were VAMPIRES!!!" in that screachy little weasle voice of his.
my problem with Dusk til Dawn is that I like heroes, and for the bad guy to walk away with the underage innocent at the end, just makes my ewww emotions go all icky. (even if she isn't really underage it's still icky)
There was nothing romantic about early vampire fiction. There was something very SEXUAL about it, but nothing romantic. The concept of the vampire as a romantic figure stems largely from the Hamilton Deane adaptation of Dracula for the stage, which recast the count (who was really a monster in the original text, along the lines of Murnau's Nosferatu) as a more urbane sort of character with an opera cloak and evening clothes.
The Lugosi film adaptation largely follows the Deane plot, for budgetary reasons, and so it's the more popular telling, but it's far from the most authentic. (In many respects the Copolla Dracula follows the plot of the novel better. The Hammer Dracula from the 50's is an odd case where I feel it's more faithful but can definately see an arguement to the contrary.)
The standard error of the regression was 1.54 wins per season.
This formula matches some other handy sabermetric rules of thumb (1 point of OPS->2 runs over a 162 game season, 10 runs->1 win) but that error seems way low.
I just tried it on the 2008 AL, and found a standard error of 6 wins, which is about the best one should expect to do (.5*sqrt(162)).
1.5 wins/year just doesn't seem plausible.
My primary issue with current vampire fiction is the notion that all vampires really want to do is to bone human girls and be loved. Every time I see a vampire character getting involved with a human character I think "What is this, American Pie?! Stop f*cking your food!"
Nothing says "manly" like having your wife beat up people for you.
also:
"We're gonna need more Zombies"
are there brains to be had there?
Frankenstein monsters are better than all of them combined.
when you are wrong, you are really wrong. There is just not that many stories to tell with Frankenstein monster, there are definate spinoffs that deal with a scientist creating life and the ramifications of such actions, but the number of movies with Frankentstein monster really totals about a dozen and when Young Frankenstein makes the top five list there, you have to realize it's a limited genre.
Frankenstein was not the monster. Frankenstein was the doctor. (Okay, so maybe Dr. Frankenstein was a monster, but that's besides the point.) The Creature in the novel was absurdly literate, if somewhat amoral.
And cfb, you're being way too narrow in your conception of what movies fall into that genre. Once you drop the requirement that the word "Frankenstein" appear in the title, there are some fine films that explore the idea of man creating life.
That still won't make Mike Vick any smarter.
agreed, just don't think that on the whole there are enough of them to really qualify as it's own genre, and they almost all seem to fall into the same predictable pattern. "man creates life, life causes problems, typical horror movie, man sacrifices his own life to defeat that which he created(or is killed by his own creation)"
few outside of the actual Frankenstein myth really explore the potential story in the layers that Shelley brought to the orginal story.(and the ones that do, don't bring the horror as strong into the story) And there just isn't the same number of cross genre possibilities that exist with Vampires, Warewolves and Zombies. (I don't really care for Mummy or Ghost either so won't comment on those--and of course the original list that we talking about ignored 'giant monsters'(godzilla, king kong) which I would put just after zombies) I mean how many western/Frankenstein type of movie possibilities are out there? and after Young Frankenstein is there ever a need for another comedy Frankenstein movie?
FTW.
You wrote:
"1.5 wins/year just doesn't seem plausible."
I think I got that because what I did was to take about 15 years of data and then for each team got their averge OPS, average OPS allowed and average winning pct. Then I ran the regression with 30 observations. The averaging probably got rid of alot of the randomness
Cy
I also really enjoyed Let the Right One In.
Been meaning to see that for a while.
http://bit.ly/3zfTcl about 1 hour ago reply
That link is to this thread.
The thing is, if they commented on my site, I'd be more than happy to debate it with them (and more than likely tear them to shreds). about 1 hour ago reply
But they're rather just make their little comments on BBTF, then run. about 1 hour ago reply
He corrects the 'they're' to they'd. I am immune from this ####, I took on Gotham Baseball and to a much lesser extent, TR Sullivan (hey TR!). One of y'all can take this one.
For shame
And count me among the camp that doesn't understand this sudden pop culture fascination with zombies. When will kobolds and bugbears get their due?
But they're rather just make their little comments on BBTF, then run. about 1 hour ago reply
So, let me get this straight: this dillweed posts this article on this site, then complains that the regulars of this site are commenting upon it on this site. All the while saying that if we want to debate it with him, we have to go to his site.
This guy would leave Lewis Black speechless.
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