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Lookout Landing

Daytime Observations

Enjoy a little artificial sunshine from Pravda HQ. They're either blissfully unaware of all the issues MLB.tv has been giving people so far, or they're doing their best to push those complaints to the side. Feeds have been choppy. Some streams have been unavailable. NexDef has been inconsistent. Many of yesterday's games aren't yet archived. I personally wasn't able to use many of the new DVR features. And so on and so forth. This is not the time to be celebrating new technology.

That said, when I've gotten MLB.tv to work as intended, for the most part it really has been terrific. The video quality is better, and the picture-in-picture option looks awesome. I like being able to view a box score or highlights without opening a new window. And the opportunity to pick a broadcast is going to come in handy for those previously dismal games in Cleveland, Oakland, and Texas. So the promise is through the roof. It's just that maybe they should wait a little while before blowing smoke up our asses since they always seem to have a lot of trouble around Opening Day.

Tim Lincecum may be one of the best pitchers in baseball, but he's also offensively unappealing to look at.

Ph_453311_medium

Unless that picture was taken in one of those classical astronaut training machines that spins you around really fast until you can lick the back of your eyeballs, then may God have mercy on the next guy to tell Tim Lincecum a joke.

Third base for the Giants is currently being manned by the fishing boat from Jaws. I wonder how much more baby fat Pablo Sandoval would have if he didn't burn so many calories by swinging at everything.

Chicago's slogan this year: There are traditions, and there are White Sox traditions. Which are still traditions. That's like saying "There are colors, and there is red."

Front page of Royals.Pravda: Meche Solid, But Victory Eludes Royals In Opener. For one thing, I'll never be able to make sense of the fact that both Gil Meche and Matt Thornton are good now. For another, the headline makes it sound like the Royals were desperately chasing after a furry little Victory in the park and the furry little Victory was doing everything in its power to stay away until it could get scooped up by someone who knows how to take care of it.

The Red Sox are currently winning behind the pitching of Josh Beckett and the offense of Dustin Pedroia and Jason Varitek. That entire dugout is like a joint Jagerbomb and douchebag convention. I just know they're going to ruin Jason Bay and Jed Lowrie for me before the end of the month. You could put Dan Wilson on that team and by August I'd think he rapes middle schoolers and the pet cats of middle schoolers.

4 recs  |  136 comments

Comments

I usually stay away from mlb.tv until four or five games into the season

because by then they’ve shaken most of the bugs out. Sounds like quite the pissing match is developing between mlb and Microsoft over the use/dropping of Silverlight last year.

Well Silverlight was a pile of poo so I'm thrilled that it's gone

I used WMP all season long.

I never really got Silverlight to work either

I’m a bit nervous to go try the new player on my mac, though – Flash and Mac don’t always play nice.

Good news! The new player worked just fine on my 2 year old Macbook in Firefox.
Aside from the other, reported, problems

I’ve had no big issues. It seems to be working fantastically for me…

Works fine on my Macbook Pro.
awesome, thanks everybody

I’ll give it a shot in the next day or so.

I should mention it uses a lot of power.

I remove my battery because it makes my laptop run so hot.

Yeah, I flipped on my cooling pad to help.
I have an iMac so battery power's not an issue
Isn't Jon Miller a Giants announcer?

I can’t seem to find him on their feed today…

Nevermind, there he is

When i clicked on the radio feed earlier, it wasn’t him. Any idea when MLB.tv will let you use a radio audio feed with a video feed? Or if it will even be possible?

Expecting that feature from MLB.com might cause a major crack in the earth.
Meh, it's worth not having the video to have Jon Miller

Just a phenomenal announcer, and one of the best parts of baseball.

Dan Wilson is a saint.
Molina and Sandoval hiting back-to-back.

That should be some epic base clogging…if they happen to get on base.

Did anyone in the blackout area have luck watching on mlb.tv last night?

If so I would appreciate it if you could drop me an e-mail that explains the procedure you used for the purposes of research I am conducting. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

My friend in Tacoma managed to watch the Mariners game on MLB.tv

What we did was I logged into the account here in Wyoming, fired up the Mariners game, and then he logged into my account, and for some reason he was then able to watch the Mariners game as well because the server for some reason assumed he (on my account) was also in Wyoming

I get the impression that they closed some loopholes this year.

I would gladly watch the game on TV but because the Seattle’s telecom industry appears to think my inability to get cable or DirecTV is hilarious my options are limited.

We did this last night

I’m not sure if that was a one-time glitch; we’ll be trying it again tonight

They might have the blackout restrictions removed this week because they want to lure more subscribers.

And isn’t there a free preview this week, or is that only for Extra Innings?

The free preview was April 3-4

And I wasn’t able to watch the Rockies game yesterday due to a blackout error (which is fine because I have it on TV)

Really cool post Jeff, God I've missed baseball.

Hope we’ll see more of these daytime observations in the future.

So... eff my team lead for scheduling a meeting from 4-6 on a day which I intentionally came in early so I could leave early and catch the Erik Bedard show

oh well, here’s a to 15 swinging strikes on curves tonight

Bring your laptop to the meeting. Be sly.
I have no laptop =(
Wagon + Desktop + Extension cord
?

Um.

Nothing on the screen. Needs more battery juice…

Maybe there is a UPS attached in there somewhere
I am glad Bavasi was fired because he would have signed Kyle Farnsworth.

And I cannot believe the hype surrounding the Royals. Watching them go through that lineup today was awful.

Needed more WFB
Watching Farnsworth's meltdown was the most predictable and hilarious thing I've seen all day.
Gabe Gross the last hope for Tampa Bay.

Bleh.

Buhhh

Mike Redmond now day-to-day with a pulled groin

First a broken bat to the shoulder/neck, and now a pulled groin.

He sure looked hilarious getting held up at third yesterday. Dude’s a tank.

Hey another righty reliever

link

We have signed Jeff Zimmerman

http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/mariners/2009/04/07/mariners_sign_another_closer.html

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YESSSS

Remember when he was good for that season and a half?

FINALLY THE MISSING PIECE OF THE PUZZLE THERE'S NO STOPPING US NOW
WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE
WE ARE GOING TO FLIP NINE CLOSERS FOR PUJOLS.
Closers are not like meth Jack, you do not need to get some every day to make the pain go away
GMZ and his reliever fetish is really starting to piss me off
are

</grammar Nazi>

Nooooooooo

The sentence, minus the clause, would be “GMZ is really starting to piss me off”

Perhaps you could argue for the inclusion of commas after GMZ and fetish, but the sentence is chill.

he's right
Depends on how you read it.
the way I intended it "are" was the correct verb
Touchee

Though I still think is could have worked as well

The correct solution:

GMZ’s reliever fetish is really starting to piss me off.

Yes.
Because either of the other solutions

will sound wrong to the ears… thus creating “noise” rather than allowing the reader to comprehend the though cleanly. While gramarians will contend that there is a “right answer”, both solutions fail in the real world.

This is also why saying “I hanged myself with a rope after Lincecum’s start today” or “I sneaked into the ballgame” are actually wrong (even though they are correct.)

Bravo.

Well-put.

Sounds to me like gramarians need to get laid a bit more often.
thought*, grammarians*
English must be your second language considering you are a Nazi.
Nein!

German by blood, English by tongue.

Well at least we won't have any more junkballers in our bullpen

requirements for bullpen under GMZ and Wakamatsu

  • throw the ball really fast
I like junkballers :(
Cordero never threw hard, and is now throwing 82

Zimmerman, eh, I’d be shocked if he’s much over 85 after three surgeries and an EIGHT YEAR layoff. I don’t know… Very strange.

Throw really hard if you’ve never been a proven closer, but if you’ve ever been a proven closer, we’ll give you a minor league deal at least.

I bet Robb Nen is tanned, rested and ready to go. John Franco’s only been gone a few years; he’s gotta be ready to go.

Nolan Ryan's not doing much these days either
Get me Goose Gossage!

Have doctors figured out what’s ailing Dan Quisenberry? Don’t tell me being dead for 15 years is some sort of automatic, rubber-stamp, non-thinking reason to avoid calling the guy. Think outside the box! Think how deceptive his delivery would be without all of that flesh!

Norm Charlton!
He's already in the org too

Toss a mit and a hat on him and let’s play ball

Well, so is Wetteland.

Why is he advocating for his buddy from his Texas days? Just go out there yourself, John.

What the donkey balls
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that GMZ is about to break the traditional starting pitcher model and just go with a 17 reliever pitching staff
*12 reliever
I'm not convinced this is all that bad of an idea
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it on days when Silva/Washburn/RRS are pitching
I'd even suggest using them as super-relievers who start games

so tell them not to save anything and they’re getting pulled after three no matter what and then bring in a bunch of relievers to finish the game

Nine innings, nine pitchers

keep the opposition on their toes.

Interesting idea.

Instead of spending big bucks on free agent SP, carry 12 relievers [or 9 relievers and 3 starters who earn league minimum approx. salary like Felix] and run them out instead of a proper rotation. When one sucks, demote him and replace with AAA arm.

Hmm interesting…

It would be a genuine wonder if some of you guys did the back-of-the-envelope type threads on this.

Really interesting idea, since GMZ started cornering the market on relievers I’ve been wondering if it holds any water. The threads where you guys that can work numbers doodle out some ideas together are particularly fascinating.

So...are we trying to develop a scarcity of righty RPs throughout baseball by stockpiling all of them into our organization?
Baseball has somehow gone at least the last SIX (or EIGHT) YEARS without Jeff Zimmerman so he's an interesting place to start
I have no idea what he's been doing since 2003
I just don't get how you wake up in the morning and say

“Hey, today I’m going to sign Jeff Zimmerman”

with a straight face

Who the fuck is Jeff Zimmerman
Bob Dylan's forgotten brother
No I think this is that guy from Wallflowers.
oh yeah right
No, that's Jeff Zimmerman's son
If this guy is in any way responsible for that guy then fuck this guy.
Kenny Powers.

Fuck you, I’m Jeff Zimmerman.

Excellent question.
Did you watch baseball 10 years ago?

Dude was the bee’s knees for a while there.
He came up in 1999 and had a 44k/9bb start in 31 games- looked unhittable in the Mark Lowe mold. Even more dominating in 2001.

His brother made it the majors for the M’s, but the talent in the family was unequally distributed.

Warren Spahn also used to be pretty freaking good.
Nope

First baseball game I watched was a game in 2001 where we were up 14-2

But I didn't pay attention properly until '04

Yay!

Damn that game

though, interestingly my first too… good ol’ MLB on Five

WOOOOOOOO!!!

That said, RIP five baseball. :(

Definitely RIP

Jonny Gould was a top bloke, really going to miss the studio bits

Sunday night completely sucked.

Watching SNB without our studio guys was awful. Jonny Josh and Dave need a new home and soon.

Can't see anyone else picking it up though

Seeing the game on ESPN America was ok, but still just not the same.

Hmmm....

Jimmy Morris’ cousin?

Are you in any way kidding?
Why haven't we tried to resurrect Norm Charlton?
Well somebody will need to take Juan Rameriez spot in the rotation once he gets moved to the bullpen
He's too tall to be a starter anyways
Lincecum is a freak.
Ironic, I presume?
Nevermind, I thought you were referring to his decidedly underwhelming performance today.
He's mighty mighty....lettin it all hang out
baseball-reference has sucked since the new format was launched.
I just bought MLBTV Premium.. testing it out on the Giants game

Having absolutely zero problems.. Actually really impressed how smooth it is. Last season when I tried to watch at work, it was unwatchable

The problems usually occur during the first week, especially opening day.

I think the servers get overloaded. Last night I noticed when the west coast games began, the Mariners feed went bonkers for everyone.

Ruh roh...

We shall see! As long as I can get audio, I guess I can survive

I am a female and I find Lincecum strangely attractive.

Please do not judge me.

I know plenty of people who find Lincecum strangely attractive
Money has that kind of power.
It's not strange.
You're a moose
Does anyone else think

Lincecum looks strikingly like Michael Phelps?

Kind of... Lincecum's is basically Phelps' mini-me.

He’s about a foot shorter and probably 100lbs lighter.

He looks as high as Phelps
Michael Phelps without the body isn't very appealing
That last paragraph is pure gold
I copied it and sent it to a friend of mine from Boston

Amazing – wish I could rec a paragraph

I came to post this.
David Purcey's going to be good this year.

As are Lind and Snider. I find Toronto sort of fascinating.

Fuck the new player in the ear with a chainsaw

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