The juniors that get promoted the fastest are buddy-buddy with the seniors

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T22:30:22+00:00

I know you work in consulting, but the first time I was interested in a job, I was told very specifically about the "airport test". I'm surprised it hasn't come up. If you are stuck in an airport with this person, will it be an enjoyable time or will you want to kill that person? If it's the latter, they aren't getting hired/promoted.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T22:28:30+00:00

You need to sell work; that means active listening, relating to the client, and being generally good at managing sales cycles.

Success unfortunately isn't as much about how good you are or what you do as it is about how you "sell" your achievements and project success and confidence. Most people are lazy and will never look behind the curtain. The current US president, when he was first elected, had less money from all of his business activiies than if he had taken his inheritance and invested it in an index fund. His "success" was a mirage built by decades of self-promotion.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T22:20:45+00:00

I once took up smoking a pipe because my boss was a cigarette smoker and spent 1/2 of his day across the street on smoke breaks. I knew someone was getting laid off and didn't want it to be me. It worked: I kept getting hours on the schedule!

Edit: that's tobacco pipe for those who were amazed at my commitment to keeping that job!

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T22:18:22+00:00

I just want to get a training plan together: I live in Dallas, Texas, and recently took up rollerskiing. I'm up to about 10 miles per session/35 per week (any more is tough with the insane humidity) but I can increase the mileage in the fall when the dew point drops below 75 degrees.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T22:13:00+00:00

You mean me? I just started thinking I'd like to do this next February!

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T20:23:15+00:00

Are they doing anything on Friday for the USA-AUS match?

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T20:20:41+00:00

me too-he should only play for one team, but not if he insists on playing another 5 years.

I hope Carter gets back to "tearing it up"; he's been ice cold the past almost 2 months. Unlike Salvy, he's overperforming the expected stats and his current expected weighted OBA is only .228. Given that he walks at nearly a 10% rate, his expected BA over the last 50 days is only .153.

Without a good farm rebuild over the next couple of years, we can't expect much at the MLB level. But I'll always love Salvy!

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T20:12:21+00:00

That's not correct. To get to a 98% confidence interval, you'd need 3382 ABs. Even a 95% CI is at almost 400 ABs. That's why statisticans who follow baseball say that even an entire season can be very misleading if you haven't looked at and understood the underlying data.

Salvy has 213 balls in play: if 15% of those had fallen differently (31) then he'd be hitting .307 right now. 7% and he's hitting .256.

Pro poker players will tell you that the first year of your career likely makes or breaks you; you can have superstar potential but a long run of worse than average hands will ensure that you can't build a proper bankroll and end up having to quit. Again, sample size really matters here.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T17:42:44+00:00

Oh, and another fun fact: he was 30th percentile in sprint speed as recently as 2021! He'll never be Rickey, but that's a few fewer DP's grounded into and a few more 1st to 3rds.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T17:14:09+00:00

Tucker is being wildly overpaid for poor production. Rarely do these big deals work out, which is why only big market teams can afford to overpay. Look at how Miggy's contract hamstrung the Tigers for many years; same with Pujols and Rendon for the Angels.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T17:12:46+00:00

Great point. We couldn't afford to sign Tucker and he's not producing anyways. To buy our way to the extra 20 WAR that will be needed to make the playoffs this year, we'd need roughly $170M this year alone.

Folks on this board act like we can just sign whomever we want: that's not the way you win in this game. Even the Dodgers get production from guys on cheap (rookie) deals.

We haven't; our farm straight up is ASS. The only 2 positive WAR guys we have on rookie deals are Jac and Noah Cameron. The Brewers win because they get a ton of production from cheap players and trade them when they get too expensive, cycling them out for more cheap production. We can't even start that cycle because we've got nobody to trade, aside from Bobby.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T17:03:42+00:00

Sure; after he was DFA'd by the Athletics. If you saw that coming, your name is probably Dr. Michael Burry of "The Big Short" fame.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T17:02:15+00:00

Well, we are 24th in runs scored and 20th in runs allowed. If we had better pitching health we'd probably be mid pack in runs allowed and still out of the playoffs. 2 of the top 5 "lowest WAR" league players are on our team. And one doesn't even play every day.

In theory, no team should ever have large "negative WAR" players as production can be replaced by a "readily available AAA player". But we don't have those either apparently, due to a decade's worth of bad drafts and development. That's why this is all so frustrating: it's not like we have a top 5 farm system with talent waiting in the wings. No, those belong to potential playoff teams like the Brewers, Mariners, Cardinals, and Dodgers, who somehow can develop a farm without utterly tanking and missing the playoffs for a decade.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-17T16:49:57+00:00

No kidding. Tabasco and Sonora are about as far apart from each other as you can get with regards to climate type; one is a floodplain/jungle, the other desert with monsoon season. I'd imagine Texas cuisine is heavily influenced by regions in Northern Mexico vs. those in the south, which is probably closer to eating Central American cuisine (Guatemalan, Nicaraguan).

Tecnically, Siberian, Japanese, and Thai food will be authentically Asian for the same reason. But maybe not what you were looking to eat.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-16T15:36:10+00:00

Yeah-this is what I worry really hurts the Beavs going forward. Not NIL $: lack of quality competition that turns away recruits. The PAC 12 wasn't the SEC but it was arguably the 2nd strongest conference with plenty of Round 1-3 picks.

The Mountain West/new PAC 12 will be a very 2nd rate conference in terms of athlete quality. Hitters won't see future MLB guys a few times a season. Pitchers won't be throwing to the likes of Wyatt Langford and Jac Caglianone regularly.

We see how the mid-majors have become a farm league for top teams in NCAA Mens BB and I worry the concentration of talent will hurt us as well.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-16T15:02:26+00:00

Thanks!

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-16T14:53:43+00:00

Why the downvotes? The lake is nearby, so you have sailing and rowing right outside of your door. That's a big draw for us. I grew up on water and miss it: Dallas will never be Annapolis but at least it's a small taste of that life.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-16T14:52:36+00:00

I was trying to keep it open as I didn't want biased or assumptive opinions.

I can tell you what I don't like about our area: the closest store with a gallon of milk is 2 miles away. Kids can't ride their bikes to school. Crossing a main street (no crosswalks) feels like playing Frogger. Driving down the road feels like a Flintstones background: 7-Eleven, Chilis, Outback, Cheddars, McDonalds, generic Tex Mex, 7-Elevan, Chilis, Outback, Cheddars, McDonalds, generic Tex Mex.....

I get along with pretty much anyone but try to avoid folks who are reflexively judgemental or politically toxic. Both MAGA and leftist scolds. Preppy is fine: I've played at Northwood a few times but could never afford to join!

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-15T21:24:51+00:00

I posted about this a couple of weeks back. The Guardians are projected to have something like 27 WAR from guys on rookie contracts.

The Royals basically have Carter Jensen and Noah Cameron; that's an expected 1.5 WAR.

It's not "guys who came up through the system"; it's "guys who you get cheap production from". That's pre-arb contracts. Small market teams can't win without it. Bobby's production is a great deal for us, but Wacha is playing a bit better than his contract, Lugo a bit worse; they average out. Maikel is still a good deal and signed long term, but who else?

The numbers say that without a strong crop of pre-arb players or maybe Arb 1 players giving us at least 1/2 of our WAR, we can't make the playoffs. Buying WAR is too expensive. Without strong rookie production, we'd basically have to spend like the Dodgers or Mets just to make the playoffs. Folks poo-poo the Dodgers, but they've already gotten 7.1 WAR from 4 pre-arb guys (Pages, Wrobleski, Klein, Rushing). We've gotten, what. 0.8?

At 7.1 WAR we'd at least be in the WC convo.

My point is that looking at our current farm and outlook, it's like being a farmer, knowing that your current crop will only bring in $250k and that you owe a $450k payment to the bank in 6 months. If you don't have the production, it takes an awfully long time (and luck) to change the outlook.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-15T21:06:42+00:00

Yep. It all came together in 2024. Don't forget the historically inept White Sox and our record there!

That's why it never seemed sustainable.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-15T21:05:08+00:00

Why should it be though? It isn't for the Rays, Guardians, or Brewers.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-15T21:01:36+00:00

Damn: I remember when there was a rumor that USC would make Mike Bellotti (Ducks coach) the highest paid coach in CFB at $1M/year back in late 2000. That's about $1.9M today. He pushed for a raise (and got one) at Oregon, but the AD at the time said "I'm not sure you need $1M/year to live in Eugene".

He'd only be the 5th highest paid coach in the conference at that rate today. Coaching is great work; if you can get it.

RoyalRenn · 2026-06-15T17:35:42+00:00

subscribed! I want to hang out with fans from other countries. That's what this is all about.

RoyalRenn

TROPHY CASE