Weather for the Rays Series

[Diehard_O's_Fan]

The Rays come to town tomorrow and the weather looks absolutely terrible on Monday and Tuesday. You don't want Ubaldo pitching in the rain. He will get absolutely bombed. What do you guys think is going to happen?

[Frobby]

Why is Ubaldo any more prone to pitching more poorly than usual in the rain compared to some other pitcher?    I don't see it.   

[SteveA]

1 hour ago, Diehard_O's_Fan said:

The Rays come to town tomorrow and the weather looks absolutely terrible on Monday and Tuesday. You don't want Ubaldo pitching in the rain. He will get absolutely bombed. What do you guys think is going to happen?

The weather forecast for the Boston series looked horrible as of Wednesday or so.  It was supposed to rain Friday...It did during the day but in the evening it was unbelievably nice out.  As of Friday it looked like both Saturday and Sunday games would be in serious jeopardy.  After a half hour rain delay at the start it didn't rain at all during the game.  And today there's a clear blue sky.

It amazes me that people put so much stock in the weather guesser's predictions and get all worried about it.  They are not that accurate a few days out.

And they also have economic incentive to spin each forecast as badly as possible, for two reasons.  One is that a news promo that talks about potential bad weather will get more people to tune in to the news cast and higher ratings.  The second thing is, it is way better to err on the side of a bad forecast.  If you say the weather is going to be nice and it sucks everyone will remember and hate the weatherman for it.  If you say the weather will be bad and it turns out good, people are happy and forget the incorrect forecast.

So the weather guessers have an economic incentive to emphasize the worst possible weather.  If there's a small chance of rain that will be the dominant part of the forecast.

We've already had three of four threads this year, starting with Opening Day, where people saw an iffy forecast and got all upset or were sure a game was likely to be rained out.  And we haven't had a rainout yet.

I'm sure we'll have a few rainouts before it's all over.  But for every rainout we actually have, there will be about five threads like this one getting all worried about the weather based on some forecast a few days out.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

It amazes me that people put so much stock in the weather guesser's predictions and get all worried about it.  They are not that accurate a few days out.

And they also have economic incentive to spin each forecast as badly as possible, for two reasons.  One is that a news promo that talks about potential bad weather will get more people to tune in to the news cast and higher ratings.  The second thing is, it is way better to err on the side of a bad forecast.  If you say the weather is going to be nice and it sucks everyone will remember and hate the weatherman for it.  If you say the weather will be bad and it turns out good, people are happy and forget the incorrect forecast.

So the weather guessers have an economic incentive to emphasize the worst possible weather.  If there's a small chance of rain that will be the dominant part of the forecast.

This is true.    Ever read Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise? Basically, weather.gov gives the most objective forecast, weather.com shades all the precipitation predictions in favor of precipitation, and the local news way overemphasizes the possibility of rain or snow.    But in any event, forecasts that are more than 2-3 days out are not very reliable.

 

[thezeroes]

7 minutes ago, Frobby said:

 Ever read Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise?

Excellent book.

 

[Diehard_O's_Fan]

Ubaldo just recently said that his splitter does not work when it is cold and nasty out. His splitter seems to be a big pitch for him. I would rather have someone else in the game when it is cold and nasty out.