L.A. gets 2028 Olympics.

Swingin’ for the fences mitts.

Arguing during patriotic songs.

Using a model developed with Wayne Winston, I post the NFL bets I would make against the spread each week. My model uses scores from previous weeks to predict the results of the current week of games. Here are my 2014, 2015, and 2016 betting results, where I am a combined 310-307 against the spread, including a terrible 2016-17 campaign that went 105-133 in an unpredictable year.

Now, it is week 2, so I only have one week of results with which to build my model. And it’s based on scores alone. So it only knows the scores of week 1, and, for example, it does not know that New England is typically a really good team. Nonetheless, the model has been profitable when run over the last 30+ years, even in week 2. Given that, here are the predictions for week 2:

Boston Red Sox Used Apple Watches to Steal Signs Against Yankees. Look… don’t cheat. In sports, in card games, in board games, in school. Just don’t cheat. (Sign stealing WITH YOUR EYES is part of the game. No electronics. No binoculars.)

In fantasy football, teams out of contention cannot just dump their stars on the waiver-wire for playoff teams to pick up. So why can the Pirates?

Good use of insurance.

More Joey Votto: 5 walks in 5 plate appearances, seeing 43 pitches.

Dusty Baker “throwing caution to the winds”. This is crazy to me:

While pitch counts are crude metrics, only 10 teams have allowed a starting pitcher to exceed 120 pitches this season; only two teams have allowed it to occur on multiple occasions.

So close to epic, Kevin Huber.

What it feels like to get hit by a pitch.

That was Robin Ventura’s hilarious excuse for famously charging the mound after being hit by Nolan Ryan, who got Ventura in a headlock and started pounding away. “He threw so hard, it hurt so much, I didn’t know what I was doing, so I just took off after him because of the pain,” Ventura said. “I got about halfway to the mound, came to my senses and said, ‘What am I doing charging Nolan Ryan?’ But I couldn’t turn back then.”

How inevitable is it that college football will expand their 4 team playoff?

Longest suffering fan bases.

Interesting take on Kyrie Irving deal.

Baseball Is Overrun By Adam Dunns. Okay, here’s why: Analytics has helped defenses. Fielders have much more optimal placement/shift based on hitter tendencies. Pitchers pitch to hitter’s weaknesses and pitch to encourage a ground ball into the shift. Pitch framing catchers are being encouraged and used more often. How has analytics helped the hitter? He still has to hit a 90+ MPH pitch with his personal skill. So, to compensate for less success when the ball is put into play, hitters are going all-or-nothing to hit it out of the park. Hence, fewer balls in play and more “three true outcomes” at bats.

4 outfielders? I do like the hand-drawn alignment toward the end. Also Fangraphs.

Further evidence not to overpay for relievers.

Pitching Joey Votto inside is leading to his power surge.

Winners and losers in Disney/BAMTech deal.

29 highest paid MLB players all-time. Look at the difference in dollars between #1 and #2.

Nerlens Noel contract stalemate. I expect Mark Cuban to win most deals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlAYur_YAaU

17776: What Football Will Look Like in the Future.
Thoughts: How am I just now seeing this? This is so good. It’s a “serialized speculative fiction multimedia narrative by Jon Bois published online through SB Nation”, so just go with it.

The Trade Deadline Doesn’t Matter As Much This Year.

The Yankees are still the worst.

MLS offered huge television contract if they’ll consider promotion/relegation. I’m of the opinion that this would make soccer in the US more interesting, but I also understand the entrenched interest that MLS owners have in preventing it. I give it a 5% chance of happening.

Breaking down Kyrie Irving’s game.

Andrew Hawkins, former Bengal and Brown WR, to pursue Ph.D. in business/economics.

Updated after rounds 1 and 2.

I have two brackets, one based on my model results below (always picking team with better total coefficient) and one based on my own picks. The one based on my own picks went 16/16 yesterday.

Maria’s own picks also went 16/16, and we did not fill out our brackets together. We do have differences in choices today, so at least one of us will not be perfect come the round of 32.