I have no idea how this happens, but one of the most popular pages on this site, which has SO MUCH super great content, is a search for”Wrong upi isue”. I don’t know what a UPI is so I can guarantee you are not going to find a satisfactory answer to this question at this website. Sorry.
Month: July 2024
The shelf-life of a baseball reliever
Ever since I read Moneyball, which turned me into a baseball stat super genius, as it did for everyone else, I have wondered about the value of a relief pitcher. For the most part, they come and go pretty quickly. Today’s top set up guy is tomorrow’s DFA.
Mason Miller, the A’s closer, has been fantastic. A lot of people think he’ll move at the trade deadline, as the A’s certainly don’t need him to finish last again. How much would you give up for him? If we’re just talking “We need a top closer to win the World Series this year”, fine. But how many years is he going to be a top closer?
My theory was three years is the max except for really top-end guys. The corollary to my theory is that this doesn’t apply to Mariano Rivera, who was the best reliever ever by a large margin. To test my theory, I finally got a subscription to FanGraphs, dumped all data for relievers from 2000-2024, ranked them by WAR each year, and then counted how many times a guy was in the top 25.
| Player | Years in the top 25 in WAR |
| Mariano Rivera | 12 |
| Kenley Jansen | 9 |
| Joe Nathan | 8 |
| David Robertson | 8 |
| Craig Kimbrel | 8 |
| Aroldis Chapman | 8 |
| Trevor Hoffman | 7 |
| Rafael Betancourt | 7 |
| Jonathan Papelbon | 7 |
| Francisco Rodríguez | 7 |
| Billy Wagner | 7 |
| Joakim Soria | 6 |
| Octavio Dotel | 5 |
| Liam Hendriks | 5 |
| J.J. Putz | 5 |
| Greg Holland | 5 |
| Francisco Cordero | 5 |
| Edwin Díaz | 5 |
| Ryan Pressly | 4 |
| Roberto Osuna | 4 |
| Raisel Iglesias | 4 |
| Matt Thornton | 4 |
| Mark Melancon | 4 |
| Ken Giles | 4 |
| Keith Foulke | 4 |
| Josh Hader | 4 |
| Jonathan Broxton | 4 |
| Joaquín Benoit | 4 |
| Huston Street | 4 |
| Heath Bell | 4 |
| Emmanuel Clase | 4 |
| Devin Williams | 4 |
| Dellin Betances | 4 |
| Byung-Hyun Kim | 4 |
| Brad Lidge | 4 |
| Brad Hand | 4 |
| Bobby Jenks | 4 |
| B.J. Ryan | 4 |
| Andrew Miller | 4 |
There you go. 39 players since 2000 have been top 25 relievers more than 3 years. I might redo the analysis a bit – WAR may not be the best way to rank a reliever.
I was definitely right about Mariano Rivera.
Of the 318 players who ranked in the top 25 in WAR in the 2000’s, 192 did it once. 60 did it twice and 27 three times. The rest is the list above.
Everyone involved here is wrong
While 1) banning the resale of legally purchased tickets should be illegal and 2) TIcketmaster totally deserves this, I wonder if anyone told them that every time the barcode changes it’s a separate felony charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
By reverse-engineering how Ticketmaster and AXS actually make their electronic tickets, scalpers have essentially figured out how to regenerate specific, genuine tickets that they have legally purchased from scratch onto infrastructure that they control. In doing so, they are removing the anti-scalping restrictions put on the tickets by Ticketmaster and AXS.
https://www.404media.co/scalpers-are-working-with-hackers-to-liberate-non-transferable-tickets-from-ticketmasters-ecosystem
Red lights – optional if you’re very special
I just walked down the 800 block of Park Rd NW, just near my house. This block contains a police station, though the only reason you can tell is there are always police cars double parked all down the block.
At both ends of the block, a driver ran the red light. And not a “oops, I should have stopped on that late yellow”, but “I see the light is red and I am consciously choosing to ignore that”.
At the New Hampshire Ave end, a driver heading east crossed the center line to pass two other drivers who were stopping for the yellow.
At the Georgia Ave end, a driver stopped in the crosswalk then floored it after the light turned. Honestly couldn’t tell you what he was thinking.
I sometimes wonder why we even have police.