Beer gets its calories from more than just alcohol. Stella Artois has 5% ABV and 154 calories, for example, which is less alcohol and more calories than Bud Light Platinum.

Has anyone seen Raysism and this guy in the same place before? Just sayin'.

How. In. The. Fuck. Did you do this without using the word "scrappy"

He's only going to pass to you if he thinks it will lead directly to a made field goal, the optimal outcome of a basketball possession.

If you cross-post this to Jezebel, the resulting flame war between the commentariat might break the Internet.

Hold on a second, it's lazy and oversimplified to say that shitty defensive teams don't win championships? Here are the last eleven champions, and their regular season defensive efficiency ranks: Miami (7), Miami (4), Dallas (7), LA (5), LA (5), Boston (1), San Antonio (2), Miami (17), San Antonio (1), Detroit (2),…

And that's all you need to know right there about Portland's chances of being a serious championship contender.

If Miami actually has the magic defensive switch that everyone seems to attribute to them (wrong or right), then Indiana is screwed.

That's the only part of the rule as it is written that is open for interpretation. As it is most commonly interpreted, the plane of the strike zone is over the very front of the plate.

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Where the hell are you from anyway, private?

You are incorrectly assuming that the area over home plate called out by the rule book is parallel to the ground. That's geometrically impossible given that its boundaries are defined by horizontal lines. The area to which the rule book refers is the plane of the strike zone, which is orthogonal to the ground.

A. Nope, not a prism. The rules state that the strike zone is delineated at top and bottom by lines, making the zone itself a plane.

Can we use this paper as our rallying point to start a campaign to have computers take over calling balls and strikes?

"Agreed."

I read their methodology section and was unable to find the probability threshold at which the authors' model recommend pulling a pitcher. Do they recommend removing the pitcher if he has, say, a 50% or greater probability of giving up a run in the next inning?

I wasn't trying to cast doubt on ZiPS. I was saying that my initial gut (read: admittedly irrational) reaction to its projection for Trout was that it was way too low, despite being roughly 50% higher than the next guys. I was commenting on how ridiculously good Trout is, not on the quality of ZiPS as a projection…

FanGraph's ZiPS projects Trout as "only" a 9-win player for 2014, almost three full wins ahead of the next guys, and my first reaction to that projection was that ZiPS is full of shit.

This is fucking beautiful.

Poor Danny Granger. He was a great player on crappy Pacers teams, got hurt last year as they made the leap, and now is traded away as they are looking poised to unseat the Heat. I hope Mitch Richmond has a spot available in his support group.

The interests of justice are not served by simply sending someone to jail. If a case is tried 30 years after the fact, you run the risk of violating the spirit of due process, because no one can accurately recount events after that long. And even total scumbags like Conlin deserve due process.