Laika

PANDEMIC POWER RANKINGS 1. THE PLAGUE (BLACK DEATH, BUBONIC PLAGUE) - predated good measurements but might have killed half of Europe in like five years. The Barry Bonds of pandemics. 2. THE SPANISH FLU - your granddaddy's influenza pandemic, killed 50 million (estimates range from 17 to 100 million). 3. SMALL POX - wiped out 50M+ over time, including 90% of Native Americans. 4. HIV/AIDS - a slow burn pandemic, it is still operating. Tens of millions have died; tens of millions currently have it. 5. PLAGUE OF JUSTINIAN - sped up the fall of the Roman Empire. Killed perhaps 50 million people in multiple occurrences across a couple of centuries (that's up to 26% of the global population at the time). 6. ANTONINE PLAGUE - 165 to 180 AD, killed 5-10 million people. Probably not actually the plague - could have been smallpox or measles. 7. THE THIRD PLAGUE - technically active from 1855 to 1960, killed perhaps 12 million people, mostly in China and India. 8. THE GREAT PESTILENCE - Mexico (New Spain) in the early 16C. Shortly after up to 8M died from smallpox in 1520, between 1545 and 1580 7-17.5M died from what the Aztecs called Cocoliztli. Now, we think this was a form of salmonella. 9. THE GREAT PLAGUES - Maybe a stretch to call this its own pandemic. The bacteria that caused the Black Death was dormant for a few centuries but had multiple outbreaks in Europe in the 18th, 17th, and 16th, centuries, killing millions. Honourable Mentions: ASIAN FLU RUSSIAN FLU HONG KONG FLU CHOLERA JAPANESE SMALLPOX Recent, but not as serious as the above: SWINE FLU (could be an HM) SARS MERS EBOLA Will COVID-19 slide into the HMs section??? Difficulties in comparing pandemics: - modern healthcare limits deaths - modern mobility makes it easier for things to become global - global population makes raw death counts hard to compare across centuries (we need to "park adjust" some of these stats. What would SARS or H1N1 have done in the 1800s?)

Personally I have always been a big fan of the Spanish Flu. That was a five tool pandemic.

yasssssss

Beans - kill the deal while you have the chance. I don't even know what the deal is, but kill it.

I am scientifically literate. I did not read the comments. This guy is selling his books, and himself as some type of professional. It’s possible to get junk science published. Very possible. If you look at that list of citations he is mostly citing himself, and then a few other studies that clearly don’t directly support his main claims in any way. Get some common sense, kiddo.

That's only interesting to me because the author is a "solar technology" engineer (not a medical doctor, or epidemiologist, or even someone with a health sciences degree) who has written a couple of s***** books on the healing power of the sun. It's s***** historical fiction and pseudoscience. Some might call it charlatanism. Certainly it's nothing approaching science. This information is akin to someone trying to convince dummies that electromagnetic fields are causing autism, or that "negative ions" or whatever can prevent cancer and keep you generally healthier.

This is a dumb and vapid reply to my reply to your reply and you should delete it.

loser talk already, eh?

Pneumonia sounds like the acute cause of death in most of these cases. Pretty sure the medical interventions for viral pneumonia are a little bit better in 2020 than they were in 1918.

The death rate of this thing in any first world country will be very contingent on how overloaded the health care system is. There is not some absolute, "native" mortality rate of 1-2% or some clean number you can expect. If the spread does not overwhelm to health care system you might see a mortality rate under 1% here. Maybe it's only a wee bit higher than the seasonal influenza. If the HC system becomes overwhelmed you might see like, ~6% in those areas. I think Italy's reported mortality rate is around there. Wild times. Imagine if in your City the hospital become overwhelmed and a huge swath of the old people just f***ing died in the hallways.

I suppose we will be dealing with a shortened fantasy season. Not a big deal. Once we know how long the league will be in hiatus for, we can figure out what, if anything, needs to be adjusted in the league. Hopefully there is some sort of baseball season this year. BUT it will f*** up the nice schedule someone spent days solving in the LOD

The DDL announces that matchups will be played without fans this year because of COVID19

At this point I believe that Cavan Biggio can do anything. The organization is stupidly thin in the OF. If someone like Kevin Smith or Santiago Espinal ends up being a surprisingly good middle infielder, it would be nice if Biggio could slide into the OF to accommodate them. Or even further out, in a couple of years Orelvis or Hiraldo could be knocking on the door as good looking middle infielders. There's also a non-zero chance that Groshans ends up in the middle infield. In the immediate it looks like it would just accommodate Panik or Drury if they decide to not suck. Not very exciting but who the f*** knows what is going to happen with the fringe talent around this roster. The team could be in a situation this year where Alford is gone, Fisher is horrendous, Teoscar is replacement level, Grichuk can't get on base, and Gurriel can't OBP .300, etc. and maybe Joe Panik is doing an Eric Sogard thing.

Split Squad day. Pearson is, I think, scheduled to throw against the Pirates and that one is on TV. Game 2 is against the Canadian Junior National team. Dasan Brown should be playing against his former National team. Should be surreal for him - last year I think he homered against the Jays while wearing red. I think a good amount of Jays prospects get looks in this game. Unfortunately it's not on TV?

I think he's just falling into that gigantic bucket of veteran free agents who project for 0 to around 1.5 WAR. Teams continue to show that they do not value these guys - they might give them a few million bucks, or a bit more if they have a glaring need and love the player, but for the most part teams are happier to give the playing time to cost-controlled players. Part of this is that teams in general are better at developing and extracting value from young talent out of their own system these days. For players like Kevin Pillar who never expected to get a big contract, they just end up settling for a bit less and they sign. For players like Puig and Gennett who at one point in the not-too-distant past were eyeing a big free agent contract it's a tough pill to swallow. That's why Puig rejected 1/$10M earlier this offseason (he probably wants that decision back) and I would just guess that something similar has happened with Scooter. I bet he's turned down some guaranteed money this offseason, maybe because it was only a few million or maybe because it wasn't a guaranteed starting job.

It's just behind Tony Rasmus being his son's personal hitting coach and behind John McDonald's dad doing his angels in the outfield thing

40 man cut candidates: Anthony Alford (certainly gone) Thomas Pannone (could be cut) Hector Perez (unlikely) Billy McKinney (unlikely?) Brandon Drury (very unlikely?)

I took a quick look and I can't find the toggle. Not sure this is an option in Fantrax, for some reason?

about 6 inches

He had his appendix removed a week ago. This was a second surgery after that?

The hype was pretty silly to begin with for a high school player who profiles at 1B. Hard for them to go in the first, although we have seen a small number this decade (Triston Casas, Josh Naylor, Nick Pratto come to mind). But I think Jordan has been playing 3B. Really all it takes is one team to think he can play 3rd and he's probably going high enough to sign... maybe even the notion that he could play the OF. Or, one team to see a Triston Casas type of hit-power combo.

Gurriel - Grichuk - Teoscar is a high variance OF with a lot of downside risk. Not much to take to the bank. In a good world, Gurriel is a 3 win player and Grichuk and Hernandez both approach 2 WAR. But in a bad world Toronto could get like, 2.0 WAR total from the three. On an individual level it would not be shocking to see any of them have years under 1 WAR. Grichuk just did it, Gurriel is a big BABIP risk as a low BB% player without much defensive value, and Teoscar has basically been a 1 WAR player his entire career. I don't think the defense would be that horrible though and I am slightly excited to see what Gurriel and Hernandez do this year.

Kinda weird.

Yasiel Puig is decent, would be a projected upgrade for Toronto, has a chance to be a significant upgrade, is positioned to be a bargain, is perhaps unfairly maligned, and is fun to watch. Should the Blue Jays sign him? Yes. Will the Blue Jays sign him? Almost certainly not.

Everyone knows how to read FanGraphs. If Puig was a really good player he'd already be signed. Or a reliable player.