3/28 - Cubs (Steele) vs Rangers (Eovoldi): 6:35pm, ESPN

[JunkyardWalrus]

I'm in the camp that wants to see Brown called up for the starts Steele misses. He's already on the 40 man. 

My guess is Palencia is recalled and Smyly moves to rotation, but hoping they surprise.

[BigbadB]

11 hours ago, ToolDRT said:

Wow, win probability switches based on in game events? It’s almost like it’s useless to keep mentioning. 

I almost picked up my tv and threw it across the room. I've never heard or seen a more worthless waste of time than showing/talking win probability. I literally yelled 5 different times that win probability is meaningless. What happened in the past doesn't mean squat to the present. I'm done with ESPN games this year. Congratulations ESPN! 

[Rcal10]

35 minutes ago, BigbadB said:

I almost picked up my tv and threw it across the room. I've never heard or seen a more worthless waste of time than showing/talking win probability. I literally yelled 5 different times that win probability is meaningless. What happened in the past doesn't mean squat to the present. I'm done with ESPN games this year. Congratulations ESPN! 

This is something I just don’t understand. How do so many viewers watch baseball? I have seem others post about the win probability on the screen and I don’t get it. Who cares? I watched the entire game and hardly even noticed it. Small print at the top of the tv. Barely a notice unless I wanted to talk about how it changed based on an out of a hit. But I probably went innings without even noticing it. IMO it is there is you want to see it and discuss it. But if not just watch the game. Certainly not something to get all worked up about. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

2 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

This is something I just don’t understand. How do so many viewers watch baseball? I have seem others post about the win probability on the screen and I don’t get it. Who cares? I watched the entire game and hardly even noticed it. Small print at the top of the tv. Barely a notice unless I wanted to talk about how it changed based on an out of a hit. But I probably went innings without even noticing it. IMO it is there is you want to see it and discuss it. But if not just watch the game. Certainly not something to get all worked up about. 

Did you have the audio on?  It's one thing to put the small numbers on screen, but they called attention to it multiple times on the broadcast as if the direction at ESPN was "we want to really push this win probability thing."

[Jason Ross]

I think there's just a lot of downtime and talking about win probability is just another thing to fill the air. It's a silly statistic and what not on the surface. I guess you can argue that win probability can be a gateway to win-probability-added, which is a somewhat interesting measure of "cluthiness", so perhaps there's a benefit, and it's a bastardized form, at times, of run matrixes and the like...so maybe that's kind of interesting on a surface level thing. In the end, I just remind myself that these guys are talking more towards the lowest common denominator. Or, in other words, I feel like at times I'm Ron Swanson at Lowes. "I know more than you" (at least, in terms of what they speak about on the broadcasts most of the time).

[Brian707]

ESPN owns their own online sportsbook now. I'm sure it's no coincidence they are pushing the win probability thing

[Bertz]

The WPA thing is definitely one of those things people are only mad about because it's ESPN doing it.  So many of the same people watch a lot of games with Fangraphs open to grab WPA.  Like this being such a common thing is why that "shut up I'm trying to calculate win probability" tweet blew up so much.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The thing about WPA is that in-game I don't really get it being a permanent fixture because as a current state it tells you so little.  Maybe they need to do that to bring enough awareness to the idea, but the real utility is showing the plays/innings that result in big swings.  It's a metric to look backwards with so I'm not sure how useful it is as a constant on the scorebug.

[ToolDRT]

38 minutes ago, Bertz said:

The WPA thing is definitely one of those things people are only mad about because it's ESPN doing it.  So many of the same people watch a lot of games with Fangraphs open to grab WPA.  Like this being such a common thing is why that "shut up I'm trying to calculate win probability" tweet blew up so much.

I just hate where we’re headed with the sports betting in general. I don’t do it, and don’t care to hear about it ad nauseam. This might be my first “angry old man” post, but, damn, do I long for the good old days before sports betting seemed to be the most important part of sports. 

[ToolDRT]

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

This is something I just don’t understand. How do so many viewers watch baseball? I have seem others post about the win probability on the screen and I don’t get it. Who cares? I watched the entire game and hardly even noticed it. Small print at the top of the tv. Barely a notice unless I wanted to talk about how it changed based on an out of a hit. But I probably went innings without even noticing it. IMO it is there is you want to see it and discuss it. But if not just watch the game. Certainly not something to get all worked up about. 

Yeah, you must have had the audio off. After about the 4th inning, it became the most important storyline of the game behind Wyatt Langford adjusting his posture on the bench. 

[CubinNY]

1 minute ago, ToolDRT said:

I just hate where we’re headed with the sports betting in general. I don’t do it, and don’t care to hear about it ad nauseam. This might be my first “angry old man” post, but, damn, do I long for the good old days before sports betting seemed to be the most important part of sports. 

I don't have a problem with betting legally. I do have a problem with networks and teams (I'm looking at you, Ricketts) in lucrative agreements with sports books and then using the game as an advertising opportunity. Gambling is a part of our culture and has been since forever. 

[ToolDRT]

3 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

I don't have a problem with betting legally. I do have a problem with networks and teams (I'm looking at you, Ricketts) in lucrative agreements with sports books and then using the game as an advertising opportunity. Gambling is a part of our culture and has been since forever. 

Yeah, I agree with this. I didn’t mean to imply I have a moral outrage with sports betting. I just don’t think that that should be the main focus of discussion in regard to any sport. And watching the Cubs and Blackhawks pregame shows…I’m just so tired of it. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

9 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

I don't have a problem with betting legally. I do have a problem with networks and teams (I'm looking at you, Ricketts) in lucrative agreements with sports books and then using the game as an advertising opportunity. Gambling is a part of our culture and has been since forever. 

I don't know.  It's legal and people have the right to bet on whatever they want to bet on, but with it being so mainstream now I worry about how many people are going to completely ruin their lives with the addiction.  Yes, that has always been there, but it has been made so much easier now.

And I get that you could say the same about other things, like alcohol advertising, but at least that is mostly limited to the commercial breaks.  Gambling is being pushed everywhere and it is only going to get bigger.

Edited March 29, 2024 by Irrelevant Dude

[CubinNY]

5 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I don't know.  It's legal and people have the right to bet on whatever they want to bet on, but with it being so mainstream now I worry about how many people are going to completely ruin their lives with the addiction.  Yes, that has always been there, but it has been made so much easier now.

The answer is lots, but at least Vinny won't be there to break their legs. He will be there to serve them eviction notices and court summons. 

The loss of money will deter most people from regularly betting daily. There will always be degenerates. I'm not much of a gambler, and with baseball being so 50.6/50.4 I don't know why anyone would bet a lot of money on individual games. 

[squally1313]

The complete ease and omnipresence of gambling is the big issue for me. Without leaving my house, or even getting up from the couch, I could lose thousands of dollars by noon today. And then when the gambling account is empty, adding thousands more takes about 4 minutes, and either way I'm bombarded with promos and sign on bonuses and whatever else. 

[Illiterate Scholar]

It cracks me up that before the sixth inning or whatever, Marquee will show a Draft Kings single inning over/under prop, then cut to gambling experts like Joe Girardi and/or Carlos Pena who ALWAYS pick the over on something that would be better for the Cubs. That feels kinda icky

[Derwood]

Also, asking players to wear patches with advertising gambling (while forbidding them from doing it) also feels gross 

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, Derwood said:

Also, asking players to wear patches with advertising gambling (while forbidding them from doing it) also feels gross 

Entirely. Even worse in things like English soccer. My favorite club is sponsored by a betting website. Their star player got busted for gambling on games (prior to his time at this club). He has a gambling addiction. Now he's wearing a shirt, every game, advertising what he's been in therapy for. It doesn't excuse his prior betting, but damn, that's rough.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I like win probability because it shows a few things that people tend to find counterintuitive:

 

1) comebacks are harder than they feel 

2) more outs to work with (home team in the middle of an inning) is a big advantage

3) the value of non-scoring hits drops rapidly from 0 outs to 2

4) the leverage individual situations have on baseball games varies wildly.  

 

 

[morrisjon]

1 hour ago, ToolDRT said:

I just hate where we’re headed with the sports betting in general. I don’t do it, and don’t care to hear about it ad nauseam. This might be my first “angry old man” post, but, damn, do I long for the good old days before sports betting seemed to be the most important part of sports. 

There is a weird thing happening where a significant amount of people are more excited about the gambling/fantasy aspect of the sport rather than the sport itself. Professional athletes are routinely criticized for not making the spread or messing up a fantasy team. It's a way for other companies to profit off the product and I don't like it either. 

[squally1313]

Yeah I don't mind win probability as a tool and certainly didn't bother me showing up in the top corner of the broadcast. I don't know how much it adds to like, the entertainment value of a game? Given Kyle's first point above, do you really want to showcase that (making up numbers) being down 2 going into the 8th only gives you a 20% chance of winning? Seems more likely to drive people off than keeping them interested.

On the gambling side of it, it seems counterintuitive just because I assume at a very rough level that in game live betting odds mirror the win probability chart pretty closely, but for the (ever growing) spreads that the casinos bake in to the odds to make sure they get their revenue. I think it's pretty likely that tracking win probability against the live odds you'd rarely see like, some sort of value proposition available, which to me would lead to decreased betting having it put right in front of you. Then again, maybe they're just counting on the anti-stats crowd to get angry and try to prove a computer wrong or something. 

[Rcal10]

3 hours ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

Did you have the audio on?  It's one thing to put the small numbers on screen, but they called attention to it multiple times on the broadcast as if the direction at ESPN was "we want to really push this win probability thing."

TBH, I just don’t care too much about what the play by play are droning on and on about. I watch the game and tune them out, mostly. But I agree that it is strictly for the gambling crowd to try to get them interested. 

[soccer10k]

1 hour ago, Derwood said:

Also, asking players to wear patches with advertising gambling (while forbidding them from doing it) also feels gross 

Players aren’t forbidden from gambling. They’re forbidden from gambling on baseball.

[UMFan83]

34 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

TBH, I just don’t care too much about what the play by play are droning on and on about. I watch the game and tune them out, mostly. But I agree that it is strictly for the gambling crowd to try to get them interested. 

100% agree with this.  I rarely pay attention to what the announcers are blabbing about unless its a big moment in the game.  The only thing I can remember the announcers talking about last night was their interview with Jung and I only remember that because Jung mentioned playing Fortnite which my kids heard and it caused them to cheer for him instead of the Cubs players.

I saw the win probability thing but didnt really have an opinion on it either way.  Certainly could have had more useful info there but whatever.

[Ding Dong Johnson]