Sammy Sofa
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Everything posted by Sammy Sofa
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It was funny when he fled from Mother Nature. -
Dan Uggla
Sammy Sofa replied to Outshined_One's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
Yup, those are the only options. -
Dan Uggla
Sammy Sofa replied to Outshined_One's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
Good point. The Cubs need to spend money on much worse players at positions where they can relatively minimal improvement instead. -
Bears Game 5: Sunday Oct 10th at Carolina, Noon on FOX
Sammy Sofa replied to UMFan83's topic in Other Sports
sulley is on fire today. -
Your Predictions for the 2011 Opening Day Roster
Sammy Sofa replied to Outshined_One's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
So they trade Aramis and Fukudome for...the sake of trading them? -
[expletive] no.
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Really? It's been pretty shitty for a while.
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Two.
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Not gonna happen.
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I don't understand the desire to move him and pay basically his entire salary. Why not just bench him if he sucks? It's the same end result since, let's face it, the Cubs aren't getting anything of value back for him.
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At least there's someone who can out-Cub the Cubs. You're kidding, right? No, not really. Not going to turn this into a big thing (as I'm sure a lot of others will. I'm hunkering down for a lot of flame and hate to be thrown my way), but you said that WE had the longest postseason losing streak. The Cubs did. And now it was passed. So at least there was someone who craps the bed worse than we do in the playoffs. That's quite a feat. Not all of my "only the Cubs" statements have been warranted. Some were said merely out of frustration. But there's truth behind a lot of them. Like this one. And a lot of others. But, like I said, I've stated my case on this before, as has everyone else, so I'm not going to get into it. Until this year the Rangers had the exact same streak. The Twins are at 11. Check out the Dodgers' streak until they faced the Cubs in 2008. There's not a lot of "truth" to any kind of "only the Cubs" sentiment here. They're simply one of many teams to have had postseason losing streaks.
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No, I wish this one had been better written and not so contradictory in its own repeated dogma. If they can't live up to the most basic thing they keep harping on others for, then they shouldn't have presented their work as demonstrating a different type of critical thinking. Instead, because they repeat enough times that they're presenting a "different approach" to economics so it's easy to see why the average reviewer/reader is just going to go along with that. In that scenario, yes, both readers and writers are "at fault," but I take more issue with the writers since they're the ones presenting skewed conclusions that obviously fall under the easy causation = correlation umbrella. I don't expect all alternatives to be examined, but too often these scenarios are presented like there are NO other significant alternatives, and like Levitt has stumbled across a type of golden ratio when it comes to breaking down these stats.
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so your real issue is that a lot of people do not do their own critical thinking? Yes and no. Part of the problem is that the authors repeatedly encourage people to engage in critical thinking (especially of one's own conclusions) trough the examples they provide, yet they are distinctly uncritical about their conclusions throughout the book despite often providing scenarios where the reader is essentially required to ignore sometimes seemingly countless additional data points to reach the author's conclusions. It's ironic that they repeatedly stress that people shouldn't fall into the easy trap of thinking that causation automatically equals correlation, yet that's what they themselves do numerous times throughout the book. Here's a blog post that does a good job of summing up my issues with the book:
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At least there's someone who can out-Cub the Cubs. You're kidding, right?
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Damn right. I explained why I don't like it. I think that too many of the conclusions and comparisons are too myopic and arbitrary and dismiss too many additional significant variables that would cast doubt (or at least different but comparably arguable conclusions) on the main conclusions. That doesn't mean that he's automatically wrong, but the book is inherently flawed, yet it was crowed over like it was some kind of remarkable socioeconomic analysis for the ages. It's not. It's essentially a Mary Roach book with more numbers, yet it's talked about like it's something that people "need" to read, and that's why I called it an "abomination," which should have been painfully obvious hyperbole. Is it Levitt's fault that the book has been taken/marketed that way? Probably not. Like I said, it's certainly entertaining and can get the reader thinking, but personally I found the book to be trying to get people to think in a very uncritical way and to ultimately just agree with Levitt's conclusions.
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That's about all it deserves. It belongs in those all-purpose "trivia" sections in bookstores and libraries instead of current affairs or sociology or economics.
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What's the over/under on how many years it is until Dempster ends up in Brenly's role?
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Yes, I have the same problems with the sequel since both follow the same format/patterns. They're both filled with lazy, factoid-style, shallow analysis. Like it was said, entertaining, but treated far too sacrosanct by many who read them.
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Who are you rooting for in the postseason?
Sammy Sofa replied to rocket's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
Something tells me there's not many of those fans. -
I really like the Phillies and I love seeing Halladay start his far too long delayed postseason career like this....but I just HATE Philly fans.
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It is entertaining, but too many of the major conclusions and incredibly skewed and one-sided and are presented as the result of comprehensive analysis. He's a "rogue economist" in that he's ignoring a ton of other data and analysis to reach his conclusions. This is an op-ed piece but it serves as a good intro as to a lot of the running problems with how the book was compiled and presented: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/10/the_shoddy_statistics_of_super.html I take issue with Malcolm Gladwell often, too, but this is a well done breakdown: http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/2006/03/thoughts_on_fre.html
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[expletive], that book is an abomination.
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If Plesac brings the Big Blue Train(wreck) with him, then I'm on board.
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Oh, Christ. They hire Grace to announce, Girardi to manage and Sandberg to be the bench coach and call it an offseason.
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yes that was definitely put to rest after the first preseason game (where wade didn't even play) Do you think they will have problems playing together? if the perennially injured dwyane wade is gonna hurt himself and miss a bunch of games, i dont think they will play together And then it's hello Cleveland with nicer weather and Bosh.
