LoHud:

Nothing official from the Yankees, but I’m hearing Greg Golson, Chad Moeller and Jonathan Albaladejo are the first wave of September call-ups. No word on a 40-man move for Moeller.

Let’s ignore the fact that he signed for about the same cost that the Yankees paid for Kei Igawa, and just be happy that the fans of a team that’s not considered a large market team get to enjoy having a top talent pitching for them.

Being an economist, I always like to ignore facts and make assumptions. Makes life simpler, even though it makes me wrong. For an example of an economist using assumptions, just look at this:

To get a rough quantitative estimate of the implications for the unemployment rate, suppose that the expansion of unemployment-insurance coverage to 99 weeks had not occurred and—I assume—the share of long-term unemployment had equaled the peak value of 24.5% observed in July 1983. Then, if the number of unemployed 26 weeks or less in June 2010 had still equaled the observed value of 7.9 million, the total number of unemployed would have been 10.4 million rather than 14.6 million. If the labor force still equaled the observed value (153.7 million), the unemployment rate would have been 6.8% rather than 9.5%.

The articles was prefaced with: My calculations suggest the jobless rate could be as low as 6.8%, instead of 9.5%, if jobless benefits hadn’t been extended to 99 weeks. No word on whether his assumptions actually apply.

WaPo sports reporter suspended for a month for a twitter hoax/joke/experiment.

Chad Jennings speculates:

• Just a guess on the 40-man move for Chad Moeller: Damaso Marte has been on the disabled list retroactive to July 8. There’s no chance he’s going to pitch before September 8. Moving him to the 60-day should be easily done.

Ooooh…that would be a very clever move.

Simmons actually had a good joke on the Mike Wise thing - he should just say his account was hacked. It worked for Carmelo!

Yay win.

[3] It’s opinion in the WSJ; what do you expect?

First place, yay!

[5] That’s just kicking the can down the road, assuming they *do* expect Marte to pitch later this year.  De La Rosa though seems expendable.

The players you reference in [1] seem reasonable though.  They could go with Gorecki/Curtis/Huffman in the OF, and DH Vazquez for the playoffs, and still have Russo as an extra OF.  Pillitere is just Moeller w/o the major-league experience, so he slots in nicely behind Montero.  Losing Alby in the playoffs will hurt some, especially as Melancon is also gone.  I guess Wordekemper as closer works…though they may call someone up from AA.

But why not kick the can down the road?  Gives you another week to decide who to DFA, and if Marte suffers a setback, you can always cut De La Rosa to make another move after the AAA playoffs.

As for #3, I don’t need to read a WSJ editorial to learn about the wonders of assumptions.  But if the argument is that we could claim a lower unemployment rate if benefits hadn’t been extended, then it’s certainly correct.  You have to at least pretend to be looking for work to collect unemployment insurance, and once you stop looking, they stop counting you as unemployed.  OTOH, if the argument is that there are over 4 million jobs available that no one is applying for…

[12]  The 6.8% thing is pure speculation, of course, and the WSJ certainly has an axe to grind, but it does seem like there is a particularly bad mismatch between the jobs available and the job seekers in this recession.  The number of open jobs is consistent with a much lower unemployment rate.

Why should this be true?  I’d guess a number of reasons including: 1) bad housing market makes workers less mobile, 2) sectoral shifts - specialized, finance, construction and manufacturing have been devasted and aren’t bouncing back, 3) uncertainty about future taxes and regulations lead employers to be extra picky.

I know from personal experience, my group has had to fill 6 jobs in the last 4 months.  The four more junior positions we had lots of great candidates, and filled them all quickly.  The 2 senior jobs, we’re just not seeing many good people.  We made one offer, and he was giving us trouble on relocating, after never mentioning it in the process, and wanted to work from home 2 days a week.  We obviously withdrew the offer.

I’m really shocked.  These are well paying positions, and I thought we’d be beating folks back with a stick, but the quality candidates just aren’t there.  Maybe all the financial companies have gotten good at only cutting the dead wood, and keeping the stars, but that seems unlikely.

What about Hughes? After a brilliant start against the Detroit he has pitched 2 horrible games in a row.  I am really concerned about the playoffs rotation.

[9], [12]. It is also Robert Barro, whose name (in my opinion, somewhat unjustifiably), frequently comes up for Nobel honors.

I used to have a lot of respect for the guy when I didn’t know what exactly his research was all about. Then he came to my University to deliver a lecture organized by the students in honor of the department founder, did not interact with students, and delivered a lecture that basically ran a regression on GDP growth rate across countries against some religiosity measures (percentage of people going to church etc.). I don’t remember his conclusions, but the quality of research and the lecture was extremely underwhelming. Looks like here is the paper.

And then I find his hand waiving in this piece, and the process he reaches his conclusions. That, to me, is the biggest problem, rather than the specific conclusion he reaches.

[13] I think the labor market frictions are much higher, mostly due to the housing crash. I know a few people in my company who wanted to move at another office in the company, and could not because they could not sell their house at the price they wanted to.

I also think that there is structural change in the economy, meaning that some previous occupations have been gone for good, and new ones have come up in their stead. So, a person who was working in finance, has great statistical skills, can probably work very well in a healthcare firm that specializes in market access research etc. But these people won’t find the jobs there because there is excess supply of healthcare researchers who have more experience. So obviously in a buyer’s market, employers can afford to be more choosy, which would increase long term unemployment. And given the fact that companies don’t want to be leveraged, or find it hard to get financing generally, and have tax uncertainty, they are not going to invest on new employees.

It is a pretty bad situation, mostly precipitated by the problems in the credit system. The situation is not analogous at all to the 1982 recession, where credit problems were not of this magnitude; the primary driver was oil price shocks and subsequent no growth inflation. To say that 99 weeks of unemployment benefits is to blame for the current unemployment rate is pretty lazy analysis.

What about Hughes? After a brilliant start against the Detroit he has pitched 2 horrible games in a row.  I am really concerned about the playoffs rotation.

He had one horrible start and one uninspired one. I wouldn’t be surprised if he is a bit fatigued and might need some extra time off in the nearish future.

Fire Eiland.

[3] It’s opinion in the WSJ; what do you expect?

Not to pick a fight, but most newspapers, including those from the Post to the
NYT aren’t exactly the model of objectivity.

Fire Eiland.

Eiland for the HOF! 

(couldn’t resist)

Not to pick a fight…

I don’t think he was trying to pick a fight either.  He said it was opinion, and that it’s perfectly consistent with the sorts of opinions generally expressed in that particular publication.  I mean, we don’t really expect objectivity on the editorial page, do we?

I mean, we don’t really expect objectivity on the editorial page, do we?

When robot publications are implemented, all opinion pieces will be objective.

[14]  Dude, 5IP/2ER is not a horrible start.  He was inefficient/wild and he did that against a poor offense, so I certainly won’t claim it was a good start.  I too am concerned.  A bit.  Horrible, however, is really overstating things.

Economic Stuff:

I know that my department has to beg and plead to be able to hire a replacement if someone leaves.  We’ve been able to do that twice since the recession hit.  I think both times we had plenty of applicants (but I’m not sure how many, given that I’m not mgmt). 

Extrapolating from my department is pointless, though, since we’re a very small, very specialized department buried deep within a huge corporation.  But as far as I can tell, said huge corporation is being pretty cautious about hiring.  I think the company-wide situation is “well, not a hiring freeze, exactly, but…” or somesuch.  And our company has actually done very well throughout all this mess.

The person I know who was most harmed by the financial cluster-F worked for a Wall Street firm and lost his job shortly after the fit hit the shan.  He was able to find a new one after a few months (just before his severance pay ran out), but not in finance anymore.  He has joined me in the eeeeevil insurance industry.  I don’t know if he took a paycut, but his commute is a TON better.

The guy I worry about is my brother-in-law, who just lost his job last week (not b/c of recession… for other reasons).  He was a cook at a diner-type place.  HS diploma only.  Will not be getting references from his prior employer.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m thinking he might have a hard time finding another job.

[22] (non-economics section)

Yeah, if that were Pettitte we’d be happy he battled.  Reading through the game-chatter, the impression was the same I had - wasn’t missing by much, maybe squeezed by the ump several times, decent stuff but command wasn’t there.  Yes, he could tighten up a little, but for his first year as a full-time starter, I think we should expect him to be shaky sometimes, and he isn’t doing half-bad.

[23] Basically, yeah, that’s how it went.  His command was off and he needs that.  He was lucky to be facing a team that can’t hit.  BattleFuse!

I’ve decided I’m confused by Hughes’ curveball (both this year’s 1-to-7 version and the old 12-6er he used to throw).  It *looks* nice.  But guys either take it or hammer it.  His fastball, doesn’t seem impressive (solid but unspectacular velo, not a ton of movement), beats guys.  His cutter beats guys.  But the curve, not so much.  Hrmph.  And I’d like to see that elusive changeup at some point.

Oh, and a Pony too please…