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You may have noticed that the baseball playoffs have descended upon us, unless you are my wife, who is about as interested in sports as I am in Grey’s Anatomy. (I hear that McCrumbly or somebody died? Is that right? Spoiler alert, or something. They apparently played the last episode in almost random order, it was unwatchable.) I think fairly frequently about the changes in baseball over time, specifically modern players’ ability to draw walks far more than they used to. The reason for it is fairly simple: in the old days, Batting Average was king. If you drew a ton of walks but batted .210, you weren’t going to see a lot of playing time. On-base percentage was unheard-of. Hitters routinely swung at anything close, which meant that walks were few, pitch counts were lower (making it easier for starting pitchers to complete games), and there was generally less offense.

Modern baseball, however, has wised up to the fact that there is a lot of value in getting on base, or more correctly, simply not getting out. A guy who bats .280 with no walks is getting out 72% of the time. That’s not great. A guy who bats .240 in 500 at-bats BUT also walked 80 times got on base 200 times in 580 plate appearances, which is a .344 on-base percentage, which is very, very good. If the guy couples that with a half decent slugging percentage, he will be an every day player. Adam Dunn played 151 games for the White Sox this year despite posting a .204 average. He struck out 222 times! But he also walked 105 times, and slugged .468. (None of this is particularly news to baseball fans, but bear with me, I’m bringing everybody else up to speed.)

The problem is, and I think we can agree on this: walks are pretty boring, as outcomes go. The actual battle between the pitcher and the batter is always interesting, but balls hit into play are much more satisfying. Even a strikeout can be interesting; watching a good pitcher rack up double digit Ks is very exciting. If a batter racks up 4 walks in a game, that’s just lame. But is there any way to reduce the number of walks in the game? I don’t think pitchers are less accurate than they’ve been in history, it’s just that the move towards on-base percentage has led to batters learning to wait for their pitch. Pitches that in the past would have been swung on and bounced to short are let go because the batter knows he can’t put decent wood on it. Pitch counts are up, walks are up, offense is up. So in order for walks to go down, you can either convince batters to swing more often, which there’s really no way to do, or convince pitchers to throw more strikes.

In theory the latter should be relatively easy. Pitchers are usually told “throw strikes,” “pitch to contact,” “stop nibbling.” The best pitchers throw far more strikes than balls (Cliff Lee is 7.43 times more likely to strike a batter out than walk him, a ridiculous rate). However that doesn’t always mean that the pitcher is throwing more pitches through the strike zone; a curveball that dives under the zone and is swung on is just as much a strike as a fastball on the corner that’s looked at. So a pitcher may produce a high strike/ball ratio just by having insane “stuff” (be it movement or speed) that hitters just miss a lot. Pretty much the only way I can think of to reduce walks is to make them more of a penalty for the defense in some way, like letting the batter go to second base in certain situations (any 4-0 walk, be it intention or otherwise), or to add some monetary penalty (teams or players have to pay a tax if their walk rate is too high), or to make a huge fundamental change like going back to the late 1800s when batters had to watch 6 balls to draw a walk.

The problem with increasing the in-game penalty is that it just makes it MORE beneficial for a hitter to draw a walk. Say MLB makes a change like saying once a team allows four walks, any walk beyond that sends the batter to second. Batters become even LESS likely to swing at that point, unless they have two strikes. It might perhaps make pitchers throw a few more strikes than they already do, but I think that’s counterbalanced by the fact that the hitter is going to be looking to swing less frequently. Same with the 6-ball walk: that just delays the inevitable. It gives the pitcher a bit more leeway, so he’s going to probably throw FEWER strikes, and the hitter can be more selective because he knows the pitcher will throw fewer strikes.

The monetary penalty has some value, I think. It doesn’t make it more likely for a team to walk a guy in any single situation, so they still can use the intentional walk as before if they feel a game is on the line, but I feel like overall walks will drop because a pitcher will want to shy away from the penalty level. He’ll still pitch around Miguel Cabrera, but he’s going to be a bit more likely to throw strikes to a lesser player like Michael Martinez. Also, it doesn’t change the fundamental rules of the game, something I always prefer to avoid (I don’t believe that the American League has played actual baseball, aside from interleague games on the road, since 1972).

Ah, weekends.

Weekends are hard, as you probably are aware. I was a good little boy, staying under 2000 calories every day last week, until Friday when I think I topped out at 3500, but I had also lifted weights and bicycled 10 miles that day, so I didn’t feel too bad. Then we had a party on Saturday, and watched the Super Bowl on Sunday (more on that in a moment), and suddenly I’d blown through a conservatively-estimated 384,014 calories in about 36 hours. Glucose is a hell of a drug. As is rye whisky.

I hate weekends. But I also love weekends.

Last week was a pretty solid week from a training perspective; aside from the missed swim on Monday, I hit all my scheduled sessions, including two of weights, a run, a stationary bike, a road bike, and a good hard swim. So while I’m disappointed in how I handled the weekend, I’m satisfied with my activity levels for the week in general.

As to the football: a couple of good commercials (I didn’t think the Nationwide one was nearly so egregious as to warrant the massive overreaction; I’ll concede maybe the Superbowl isn’t the best time to trot out your “dead kids” commercial, though I’m not sure what the best time would actually be), a disappointing first quarter, and then tha game got 2 hype brah. The consensus among my Facebook friends was that Pete Carroll made a shitty playcall, so I was amused to see that the consensus among the national media was that Russell Wilson screwed up. Maybe he made a poor throw, although I’m much more likely to give a little leeway to a guy who’s making split-second decisions while possibly suffering the effects from a concussion 2 suffered in the AFC title game. I’m not likely to give any leeway to the coach who had 15-20 seconds to figure out a play from the 1 yard line and picked something other than “give the ball to my unstoppable running back.”

I thought Katy Perry did an admirable job, and I thought Adele Dazeem did fine with the National Anthem, even though she was a little too self-indulgent, though certainly no worse than we’ve heard in the past.

The plan for this week is two swims, two bikes, a run, and two solid weight training seshes, and hopefully still stay under 2000 calories every day, and try to be a good boy on the weekend, though I’m not holding out much hope.

Things have been (mostly) looking up from a “decision-making” perspective. I went back to proper calorie-counting as of Tuesday, using LoseIt!, and I feel I’m doing pretty well, though I haven’t checked my weight recently. I’m not always perfect from a “hitting my macros” perspective; yesterday I decided I really needed an evening glass of whiskey, which took me to 2300 calories on the day instead of the 2000 I’ve been shooting for, but my primary goal is to just back into the habit of recording everything I eat. Historically it’s been an issue because I’ll get to the weekend and not bother to track things. I’m going to try and be very very good about tracking, even if I’m binging.

(Pointless side note: “binging” looks like the Microsoft equivalent of “googling.” It should be spelt bingeing to make it clear what the verb is. I think I’m going to start deliberately spelling it that way and step up my letter-writing to the Oxford English Dictionary people about it.)

There are a million ways to calculate what one’s caloric requirements are, but for me they tend to average out to about 2500 calories a day, if I’m “sedentary.” I’m obviously not sedentary, but my workouts are so hit or miss that I’m loathe to include them into the TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) calculations. If I shoot for about 2000 calories every day, then I’m short about 3500 a week, which is roughly enough to lose a pound a week. If I do 5 half-hour cardio sessions (which will obviously ramp up a ton as I get closer to triathlon race season), that should add between 1500 and 2000 calories burned every week, which is enough to either lose me another half-pound, or (more likely) make up for poor eating on the weekends, or if I decide to eat a bit more after lifting weights.

I’m sticking to a generally low-carb plan, and shooting for 200 grams of protein a day. Let’s call this a “New Year’s Resolution Reset” and get back to it, ‘Murica. Gotta lose dem 20 pounds by late May.

I’ve been generally good with workouts this week; I missed a swim on Monday because of the snow day, but I got in a run on Tuesday, a stationary bike ride on Wednesday, and made it to the Y for a brief swim over lunch today. I lifted weights on Tuesday as well, and of course gave myself a mild back injury ’cause it had been a few weeks since that had happened. I’m kinda getting the hang of working those mild strains out, though; I actually felt it stiffen up on my 2nd-to-last set of deadlifts, but did the last set anyway with no additional pain, and went for my run afterwards. I anticipate being able to squat heavy tomorrow, though obviously I’ll take it easy and see how things go.

I hope everyone is surviving this devastating blizzard and haven’t had a roof collapse under the weight of all this snow. </SARCASM> At least the Brandywine School District behaved a bit more rationally last night than they had yesterday morning; after dismissing all the schools at lunch time because of light flurries, they held off cancelling school today until this morning, and of course were able to have a regular school day as a result because we got no more white flakes on our driveway than I would get on my bedspread after brushing my cat. (Siamese produce much less dander than other breeds.)

The weather has made it difficult to get in my regularly scheduled workouts, which is frustrating and making me a bit depressed; I had to leave work at lunchtime yesterday to meet the kids at the bus stop, so I didn’t get to swim, and my general malaise has made me less likely to do my chinups, pushups, and planks; I haven’t done a plank since the middle of last week, and the last few days have failed to meet my daily 30-rep goal on the other two. At the same time, being trapped at home with my children has made me much more likely to drink delicious, calming liquor, as well as completely fall off the wagon food-wise.

My plan to try and shed fat by simply avoiding carbs most of the time isn’t going very well; after last week’s birthday-related debauchery, I haven’t dared step on a scale, and I’m still eating far too much sugar and crunchy snacks in the evenings. As much as it pains me, it’s probably time to start deliberately counting calories to try and stay under my daily limit, even on weight-training days. ‘Tis the season for seasonal depression, something that’s affected me in recent years, and it’s a bit of a death-spiral: I get sad because it’s cold and dismal, which makes me more likely to eat and drink things I shouldn’t, which makes me more sad and frustrated with myself, which makes me more likely to skip out on workouts, which makes me *more* sad and frustrated with myself, which makes me a rather crappy husband and father ’cause I just become a completely miserable jerk.

I’ve done better at staying out of my funks than I did last year (when a few times I think Sarah was going to simply put a pillow over my head to put me out of everyone’s misery), but the winter is yet young. Only 52 days until spring.

Golly, it’s been a brutal week. I actually wrote a post on Monday but forgot to actually, you know, publish it, and I kept putting it off, and procrasting, as I do, and yesterday was my birthday so Sarah’s just been stuffing me with things that are very bad for me and inspiring me to drink too much.

So it’s all her fault, as you can obviously see.

I’ve managed to keep up with my workouts, for the most part, though today was supposed to be a scheduled swim and I just didn’t have it in me. I decided to go for a nice hike at the office instead, wandered through the woods and did about 3 miles of hills in an hour. I didn’t measure my heart rate but it was definitely elevated; I might add a weekly hike to my workouts, at least until early March when I start really ramping up the triathlon training.

Tomorrow’s going to be fairly hectic, so it remains to be seen if I’ll get any training in at all other than my chins and pushups; I have to take my truck to the shop for repairs and borrow a car and drive to take a certification test about an hour away, and I’m cutting things a little fine to get there in time. If I can’t lift tomorrow, hopefully I find time for it over the weekend, otherwise I will have a super sad.

I haven’t checked my weight in a few days because my diet has been horrific, though I don’t seem to have backslid much when I look in the mirror. It looks like I may be writing off most of January, and I probably need to seriously think about a different way to stay accountable and make better food choices more frequently.

It was rather a busy weekend, as you might surmise from my silence.

I hit all my usual workout metrics on Friday; squat and overhead press, plus all the usual chins and pushups, plus a nice little 30 minute jog. I was supposed to do 4×3 of the squat and overhead press, but found after two sets that I couldn’t get all three reps, so I switched to doubles to finish things out. This is probably an indication that I am due for a reset of some kind, but I’ll wait until I actually fail on the big singles that are scheduled for next week.

Saturday I did all my chins, pushups, and planks, but we went out to dinner with friends in honor of our various birthdays, and I ate and drank too much, which caused Sunday to be a bit of a misery. At least I didn’t have to go to church, just sat around watching soccer and football and trying not to move too much or be in direct sunlight, which was helped a bit by the fact that it absolutely poured rain all day. I did not do any chins or pushups because agony. I also ate poorly, something I’m sure I’ll pay for all week.

Here we are on Monday, and unlike civilized folks I’m at work. I ran over to the YMCA for a swim and it was outrageously busy and I still felt kinda iffy, but I managed to pound out 1800 yards. Anything’s better than nothing. I haven’t done any chins or pushups yet, I’m not looking forward to trying to pack all of them into one Monday evening when I’m not feeling 100%, but we’ll see what happens; I may short today a bit and make it up tomorrow when I’m working from home.

This not-particularly-interesting update has been brought to you by hangovers, exhaustion, and hunger.