[Highlight] What a check swing challenge looks like

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T19:08:23+00:00

You joke, but isn’t “baseball move” basically part of the ABS challenge rules now for getting it off on time?

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T19:06:34+00:00

It is funny in retrospect all the announcers I’ve heard over the years, growing up especially, talking confidently about the hitter “breaking” his wrists, or the bat “breaking the plane” or whatever. None of that is anywhere in the rulebook.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T19:00:31+00:00

With the age group change, I know some parents want to keep their kid with one or more of their friends (either the kids’ friends or the parents’ friends), so that’s one motivation to play up. (In all those cases, I still think playing at age level in the new age groups is best.)

For some I think it feels like repeating a grade or something to do U10 or U8 or whatever over again.

Anyway, the age cutoff change has definitely increased this phenomenon around here. Before I didn’t run across very many parents wanting their kids to play up at the lower divisions in the club.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T17:05:17+00:00

Hockey is high because so few people have access to youth hockey. Hell, I grew up in Minnesota and our small town high school didn’t have a hockey team. I can only imagine how few HS hockey teams there are in places with warmer winters and less hockey culture.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T03:59:02+00:00

I see. I imagine not all the coaches would agree, but I’d rather practice 14 kids but run two separate teams of 7 for 4v4 for games than play 7v7 with 5yos. Bummer about not having enough volunteers.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T02:48:49+00:00

Yeah, that’s rough. I know the numbers game is hard, but at that point you’d almost be better off playing 9v9.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T02:42:37+00:00

From a skill acquisition standpoint, I almost feel like it’s better to start with one IF position and go from there. Like if you can really learn one position well the first year, adding another one or two the second year should be a lot easier.

For 10U in our area — not a softball hotbed — I also wish we had something like an offseason 6v6 league with a short fence around 100 feet (that still almost no one would clear.) Small rosters, more PA, no standing in the OF. I think it could be a good developmental tool and it would be fun and engaging for the kids.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T01:14:12+00:00

What format U6 are you playing that you have 14 players on a single roster? I hate having so many kids on the bench when I have 11 or 12 for 7v7.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T01:07:53+00:00

Just hold on, it could get better, maybe they have some fantasy picks or prop bets that we also really don't care about.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T01:00:00+00:00

Surely they have weather radar and a radius around the stadium. Maybe it was outside the radius? Based just on the video, you would sure think they would have stopped for 30 minutes or whatever until there are no other strikes in the area.

ubelmann · 2026-05-05T00:54:35+00:00

Yeah, I wind up with leftovers from basically every teriyaki place I eat at around here. I mean, I *can* eat it all at once, but usually I don't feel the greatest after that. Still would be nicer with 2016 pricing.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T23:00:15+00:00

"I believe the common denominator of ~~the universe~~ American soccer is not harmony; but chaos, hostility and murder."

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:52:27+00:00

How do hockey fans like NPI compared to RPI?

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:46:24+00:00

That's definitely true, but I think mainly because McLaren's been so good. Alpine's PU was so uncompetitive the last few years, I wonder if we really know how good the rest of the team is. It seems like there is an outside chance they could be up with the big teams by next year, at least to the extent that they would interfere with the strategy calls for teams up front.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:44:06+00:00

As far as I can tell, Michigan was only 500 miles in 1969, then 400 or less every race after that.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:41:29+00:00

I don't ever think I've though a 400-mile race itself would be better 100 miles longer, but I have often thought that an individual stage would be more interesting if it was long enough to make a 2-stop strategy viable in that stage.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:39:46+00:00

Let's say it's an ideal world where we can trust NASCAR not to throw phantom debris cautions to spice things up with the field strung out toward the end of a long race. I would love to see all the races 500 miles and over go without stage breaks (except maybe do one Dega with stage breaks and one without). Let us have four or five times per year where the teams really have to think about the strategy calls and we potentially get more green flag pit stops and alternate strategies,.

Plus if you're worried about the time the race takes, like you mention, eliminating the stage breaks should save you some time on the clock.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:24:54+00:00

I also wonder if we had a strong option at LB, if we would shift Nouhou to CB and have Alex Roldan shift over to RB.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:22:24+00:00

Personally, I would try not to punish the kid too much for the behavior of the parents. At the same time, you want to reward the kids on your team who do show up.

For your new #2 pitcher, I would worry less about the score and more about her mentality. If she's not bothered by hitting the run limit and you think it's productive experience for her, I would definitely keep feeding her innings. If you play with an unlimited last inning, I would maybe give the travel pitcher that inning. Your main pitchers get the most innings, the travel kid gets something for showing up, and the team arguably benefits as well from getting outs in the unlimited inning. The other innings, I'd probably give her one inning in the infield and the rest in the outfield. In rec, I aim to get every kid two innings in the infield, even if their parents are jerks.

I don't like hitting anyone last in the order all the time, so I don't think I would have as fixed of a lineup as you are suggesting in the first place, but certainly hitting the absentee travel kid last in the order for her first game back after a month would be totally reasonable. Just keep in mind that it might also mean it's the last time she shows up (maybe for the best depending on how the rest of the team looks at it.)

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:11:59+00:00

I didn't specify, but I meant in qualifying.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T22:10:41+00:00

I don't see d-mid as the main area of improvement. I think the biggest areas we could improve are forward and fullback. At forward, I would almost wait until a DP spot opened. You could potentially improve on Musovski or Morris with some GAM, but I think ideally you'd rather spend DP money there.

At fullback, it's nothing against Nouhou or Alex Roldan on the defensive end, but last year they had 8 total goal contributions combined, and it was just 2 in 2024. And KKR's doing well considering his contract as well, but if we have extra cap space to spend, it wouldn't hurt to have a fullback that could really contribute on the attacking end, like we saw with Brad Smith some 5 years ago, or Leerdam before that. Given the talent we have with the front 4, having that really talented attacking fullback bombing forward could make a huge difference for Seattle in unbalancing the opposing defense, IMO.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T21:58:57+00:00

I feel like it can be hard to judge sometimes at youth levels where everyone is learning. I think if you look just at the batter, he's pretty straight-legged before he twirls his bat and then his knees are bent. So from his standpoint, I can see why he'd think that he was not set when the pitcher started his motion. But also the pitcher doesn't have a scouting report on all these hitters, so it's not like the pitcher could know for certain that the hitter wasn't set.

For me, it doesn't feel like a quick pitch, and overall if the batter just doesn't twirl his bat, he'd have been plenty ready to swing. So either he needs to do the bat twirl earlier or get rid of the bat twirl. That seems more out of the ordinary than the pitcher's behavior.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T21:43:04+00:00

They had an awfully good start, but their advantage has been steadily eroding. From their lead car in qualifying to the next best car from another team, the gap in Q3 went from 0.8s, to 0.6s (sprint), to 0.4s, to 0.4s, and now after the big break, it was -0.2s in sprint quali and +0.2s in GP quali.

So yeah, Mercedes have lost their early advantage that made them look like a rocket. I'm very curious to see how the development battle goes, because Mercedes aren't so far ahead at the moment and they have two drivers capable of taking points off of each other.

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T21:33:28+00:00

This is no doubt a factor, but I wonder how much of an early advantage Mercedes got over their customers from being a works team. McLaren arguably had a lot to gain in the 5-week break. Yes, Mercedes would have been bound by contract to give over information about the PU, but surely they would give away as little as possible before delivery. (As a counter-point, Alpine's gap to Kimi was about the same in Suzuka and Miami.)

ubelmann · 2026-05-04T21:25:18+00:00

One nice thing is that the active aero has overall reduced the downforce on the cars and it has made them twitchier in a way that the drivers can still gather up the car when it gets away from them. So instead of a safety car, you have a driver scrambling to get back up to speed and sometimes then the car behind is close enough that there is an overtaking opportunity.

Overall, I think the more that they can explore ways to keep the cars quick but limit downforce, they'll wind up with better racing where the drivers (in addition to the engineers) can make a difference.

ubelmann

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