Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Notes, quotes and comment

Eric O'Flaherty, a 12-year major league pitcher, asked on a Twitter thread about the Joe Mauer spray chart I wrote about Tuesday where the "450-foot doubles" were hit.

There are some pretty long doubles pinpointed. My guess is the longest were hit at Fenway Park to that "triangle" just to the right of dead center field. There are some cheap homers hit in Fenway; there are some really long blasts that that ballpark holds as well.

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Manager of the Year is a a bit of a death knell honor. It seems a lot of recipients are fired soon after winning it -- see Molitor, Paul, as an example.

So I doubt any of the guys who didn't win the award Tuesday are all that upseat. Brian Snitker of Atlanta and Bob Melvin of Oakland took teams to the playoffs, and few writers before the season saw those clubs as contenders, so they got the votes. That's emminently predictable.

I'm still more impressed with Alex Cora, who inherited a Red Sox team loaded with talent and wrung out all the drama; with Kevin Cash, who -- with a lot of help and support from his front office, to be sure -- essentially reinvented the wheel with the Rays pitching staff; and with Craig Counsell, who worked around the Brewers weaknesses to emerge with the best record in the National League.

Not that Snitker and Melvin are undeserving winners. I was just a bit more impressed with the others.

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This has little to do with baseball and more to do generically with my occupation, but I saw that a reporter said to NBA star Kevin Durant: "Talk about the game," to which Durant replied, "Ask a question about the game."

Love it. "Talk about" is a copout signaling that the questioner hasn't given the topic any real thought and just wants to be bailed out.

But there was a similar moment during the baseball postseason, involving the Red Sox' Chris Sale. Reporter: "Talk about your success against the Yankees." Sale: "No."


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