Ask Grandstander

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by perfectstormhits

What brand of cancer dick is JoseA's monkey smoking?

Primate-lites.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by JoseA

Are you against giving human characteristics to animals? Why or why not?

Do you mean as in an artistic endeavor, where one has talking animals in a film or novel and such abilities are seen as normal within the story? Or is this more of a sci fi sort of thing where a scientist actually implants human characteristics into an animal?

Or, do you mean if the sci fi approach became possible, would I be for or against it?

In Cases one and two...depends entirely on how well the author handles it.

Case three....well, we all know what led to the Planet of the Apes, but in that I'm likely to be long dead before the animals take over as the ultimate consequence of such alterations, hell, sure, I think it would be interesting.

[phenweigh]

Where do you rate John Quincy Adams on the president scale?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

Where do you rate John Quincy Adams on the president scale?

He was a better ex-president than president, ranks with Taft and Carter in that regard.

Adams had a number of things working against him, the most damaging of which was the questionable legitimacy of his election. That controversy slammed the door on the "Era of Good Feeling" which had prevailed since the end of the War of 1812. When you have someone else in your party, who not only is more popular, but actully received more votes than you for the chief executive slot, then you are going to have difficulty asserting your authority. Adams was also saddled, via election, with a vice president who was bitterly opposed to a number of Adams' programs, and via his own principles, an executive branch staffed largely with political opponents. (Adams refused to replace a federal employee for any grounds other than incompetence...the antithesis of Jackson's "Spoils System.")


The bottom line on all this was that Adams wasn't able to get much of anything done during his four years. The nation just seemed to be waiting around until they could correct the Adams election outcome in 1828.

[LongtimeBravesFan]

How would you rank the nine postions on a baseball team defensively from the hardest to play to the easiest? For the pitcher, don't take his pitching into consideration, just what he does once he releases the ball.

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LongtimeBravesFan

How would you rank the nine postions on a baseball team defensively from the hardest to play to the easiest? For the pitcher, don't take his pitching into consideration, just what he does once he releases the ball.

The difficulty spectrum has already been well established by sabermetrics. Pitchers and catchers are not included. From most to least difficult it is:
SS
2B
CF
3B
RF
LF
1B
This was all identified by Bill James in his Abstracts 25 years ago, and I've never come across a reason to question it.

[skrable]

Does a catcher truly "handle" a pitching staff, or is that one of those urban legends akin to barry Bonds using steroids?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by skrable

Does a catcher truly "handle" a pitching staff, or is that one of those urban legends akin to barry Bonds using steroids?

I would guess that this is one of those deals where all of the supposed benefits are actually the product of believing that there is a benefit. It works very much like attributions of divine intervention in that pleasing outcomes are assigned to the benevolent hand of the diety while unwelcome outcomes are seen as random fate. Thus, if a pitcher is going poorly and the veteran catcher goes out to the mound to say a word or two of encouragement, that it had any impact at all is a menu style choice. He settles down and retires the next few batters, then the announcers, coaches, perhaps the pitcher himself, will heap praise on what a great influence that veteran catcher is on this young pitching staff etc. If the pitcher continues to get hammered, you never suddenly hear a round of criticism regarding the ineptitude of the catcher when it comes to handling a staff. It's a no lose situation for the catcher, he can only receive credit, never blame.

In terms of trying to quantify the phenomena, sabermetrics has examined the issue of catcher's "handling" of pitching staffs. The conclusion of two different studies that I have seen is: "If catchers have a special ability to improve a staff via their handling of the pitchers, it cannot be found in the data."

And really, if there was such an ability, you could not hide it. If an elephant walked through the snow, it would leave tracks. If catchers really made pitchers better, they would leave tracks in the form of reduced ERAs, increased strikeouts, reduced walks and fewer pitches thrown. The studies were unable to locate any such tracks.......so you have to conclude that there was no elephant.

[LaxD]

When will the Lions win a superbowl?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by LaxD

When will the Lions win a superbowl?

I see them getting into a Superbowl as a precondition.

[phenweigh]

Originally Posted by Grandstander

He was a better ex-president than president, ranks with Taft and Carter in that regard.

What do you admire about the ex-presidential exploits of JQA and Taft?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

What do you admire about the ex-presidential exploits of JQA and Taft?

That they remained in the political arena rather than slinking off into retirement. JQA of course won election to Congress and served with distinction, Taft went on to gain a seat as a Supreme Court Justice...and served with distinction. Some ex presidents were content to take honorary, no sweat positions, e.g., Ike as the president of Gettysburg College, some president just went into premature retirement...Jerry Ford hit the golf course and stayed there, some were too ill to do much of anything, some stayed on the edges of politics without being in politics any longer..like Nixon and Clinton, some just went off and sulked.

[phenweigh]

So looking back, was there something about successful ex-presidents that could be seen during their presidencies that would have led people to believe they would remain a force in the public arena?

[Grandstander]

Originally Posted by phenweigh

So looking back, was there something about successful ex-presidents that could be seen during their presidencies that would have led people to believe they would remain a force in the public arena?

I do not find much value in observing some historical outcome, and then embarking on a retroactive review of events so that we may pronounce the outcome "inevitable." At bottom, that is simply predicting the past, and how can you go wrong doing that? No one ever writes an article "Why The Spanish Armada Could Not Have Failed" do they?

The time to see in advance what certain chief executives were going to do after leaving office....was while they were still in office.

That leaves us with one lab sample to play with, President Bush. I am not going to make any predictions here about his post White House career because then all the champions/detractors of the President will feel compelled to rush over and present all the same sorts of knee jerk partisan reactions that one finds on the CE board. However, that might be an interesting topic to start on the CE board if you are so inclined.

[bigheadache]

How much does a Fin weigh?