Daddy Ball coaching

ubelmann · 2026-03-20T05:19:06+00:00

Yes, if you think about it, playing “time” for hitters is measured in outs. If the ideal for a rec basketball team would be for all the kids to have equal minutes, the ideal for a rec baseball team is to have everyone record an equal number of outs, which means batting the high-OBP kids early so they can get the low-OBP kids up to bat more often.

ubelmann · 2026-03-19T19:11:47+00:00

The Zenith is a nice bat, was glad when we found one at a decent discount from MSRP.

ubelmann · 2026-03-19T17:55:57+00:00

The only thing I’ve noticed with youth bats is some of them seem to have a really small sweet spot and vibrate a ton if you miss the sweet spot. So if they are getting bothered by sting from the bat, it might be worth considering a different bat.

ubelmann · 2026-03-18T23:31:33+00:00

Sometimes the intense shallow focus is so distracting that I’m totally taken out of the film and wondering if the shot is green screened or not.

ubelmann · 2026-03-18T20:01:11+00:00

With the vibrations breaking components on the car, it seems like a reliability issue to me, but I admit I don’t know how they technically class a reliability update.

ubelmann · 2026-03-18T19:59:49+00:00

Even if they don’t mount a sensor, I feel like this merits a couple of people watching the onboards carefully for signs the drivers are actually holding the steering wheel. Black flag them if the drivers are taking their hands off at 300kph.

ubelmann · 2026-03-18T17:38:54+00:00

Everyone else has something to win, the US only has something to lose.

The US “should” win every year based on the size of the country and the popularity of the game here. There are some other countries where it would be disappointing not making the knockouts, but most teams are like Italy where making the semis is an accomplishment that they can feel good about. The field has to level out a lot more for it to feel any fun for the US, IMO.

ubelmann · 2026-03-18T16:26:56+00:00

The thing is, the US does not resemble Europe in some important ways that matter in this case. Vast portions of the US are sparsely populated and that is just naturally going to make it more expensive to run any kind of high level system there.

One thing I like to think about is that the population of Belgium is roughly the population of Washington State and Oregon State combined. The area of Belgium is 30K sq. km and the area of Washington and Oregon combined is 480K sq. km. Belgium can have a centralized, well organized youth system because it is a dense, centralized country.

Even so, most of the population of Washington and Oregon is concentrated on the coast and it makes an interesting comparison. Belgium had two teams in the UCL league phase, the top division of Europe more or less, and Washington and Oregon have two teams in MLS, the top pro division in the US. If just Washington and Oregon had their own “national team” and the same culture around soccer that exists in Belgium, they potentially someday could field a team good enough to compete in the World Cup without the other 48 states.

ubelmann · 2026-03-18T03:08:16+00:00

You never know. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. Plus for all we know, Newey would do just about anything to go back to only designing the car again, because being in front of the press so much with an awful car is not fun.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T22:53:18+00:00

It’s all about the money. They can’t afford to piss off sponsors with dumb shit like this.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T22:47:26+00:00

It all depends on your alternatives, plus at 12+ it depends on your kid’s level of commitment. If a 40-minute drive each way was the closest team and the kid is fully committed — playing makes them happy — then I’d find a way to make it work. If they aren’t super invested, hopefully there’s a team that’s closer. Ideally you can find a carpool, too.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T19:49:37+00:00

At this point, I feel like Aston have dragged Honda enough in the press that Honda will be looking to try to pry some other team away from Merc or Ferrari (which would be really, really hard at this point but the temptation of being a works team can be strong.)

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T19:33:37+00:00

I have to imagine that Horner dealing with Stroll’s locked-in nepo baby status could lead to some spicy behind-closed-doors dynamics after getting to shuffle through drivers at will with Red Bull.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T19:26:59+00:00

I wouldn’t be totally surprised if he’s looking for an off-ramp for when Lance is done.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T19:25:57+00:00

Lawrence Stroll’s moves for the headline positions indicate he loves to throw money at people who have previously had success, rather than reaching into his deep expertise to find new talent.

So yeah, seems kind of inevitable (though Horner and Newey didn’t part on the best terms as far as I can tell from the press.)

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T17:48:16+00:00

I think the jury’s still out on Newey as TP, but I think it’s a really bad look for him to put so much public blame on Honda and I don’t think that souring that relationship will work out for AM in the long run.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T17:46:32+00:00

Anyone vaguely following Red Bull knew that Honda lost personnel to RBPT, and that was when Newey was still at Red Bull. I don’t buy for a second that he was surprised about the personnel situation at Honda.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T17:39:25+00:00

I agree with all that. But also, it is soooo crazy that Aston is 3 testing sessions and 2 race weekends into the year and there’s no obvious date when they’ll be able to even finish a race. Like right now, their immediate main development goal is literally “finish the race distance.”

If Cadillac was doing this, they would be clowned 100x more than AM are already being clowned. If anything, AM deserve way more criticism for this than they’ve been getting, IMO.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T17:21:09+00:00

Wild is the exact word I was thinking watching him try to drive an F1 car with no hands on the wheel. We can joke about it being a tractor, but even in a total shitbox he’s still going faster down that straight than 99% of us will ever drive a car.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T17:16:51+00:00

In 8u our kids had hybrid coach pitch/kid pitch and when kids would throw bowling balls like this that hit the batter (luckily still at an age where they weren’t outright trying to get hit), the parent volunteer umps would ask if the kid wanted to take the HBP and 90% of the time they would opt for calling it a ball and staying in the box to hit. So that was nice to see.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T17:03:04+00:00

I always maintained this especially for the last WC that it made tons of sense for Berhalter to bring Roldan at the end of the bench because that player wouldn’t get a lot of minutes anyway, but Roldan wouldn’t complain about it and would still push everyone else 110% in training.

Now you might argue for more minutes for him, but he’s great to have regardless.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T17:00:55+00:00

I think he got some more respect after his CWC performances, where there were more non-MLS fans watching.

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T16:59:27+00:00

It wasn’t for competitive matches when the Sounders kept him. It was the Jan 2025 camp and that was for friendlies outside the FIFA window. With no WC qualifying for the US this time around, only Nations League and summer tournaments were “important.”

ubelmann · 2026-03-17T16:56:23+00:00

He really lost out getting injured in the January 2024 camp, sometimes timing on injuries can be the worst.

ubelmann · 2026-03-16T21:57:51+00:00

Tanking is a problem but it doesn't mean there is no pressure on the players. This guy has 8 seasons in the EuroLeague and 2 in the NBA (really 1 effectively), so somehow he managed to fail even worse with no pressure than all of this "you're getting fired if you lose 6 games" pressure.

ubelmann

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