Jed Christiansen

I’ve had… extensive experience with solar power, dating to my years building and racing solar powered cars with the University of Michigan Solar Car Team. One of the great things about having a home in Northern California is that I was able to take advantage of the weather to install solar panels and get to net zero energy use from the grid. This post is my story, and I strongly encourage you to check out switching to solar power for yourself. (Some of the details may be different in different states.)

Why consider solar power?

In short — why not? Solar energy is getting to your roof anyway – if the cost of panel installation (divided by the number of years they’re useful, generally 20+) is less than what you pay for electricity, then it makes sense.

More importantly, going solar means that (on net) you’re NOT taking electricity from the grid, which means you’re not contributing to greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. That way by far my biggest motivation in going solar.

Federal tax incentives are also key to making solar power very affordable for many homes – because if your system is installed this year, you get 26% of the cost of your entire system back as a federal tax credit. (If you wait until 2021, it goes to 22% and then 10% permanently after that, unless rules change.)

Will solar work for me?

The quickest way to find out if solar power will work for you is to use Google’s Project Sunroof website. You’ll need just two things: your address, and a rough estimate of your monthly electricity bill.

Google takes a look at your roof, the trees around your home, and historical weather to figure out how much sunlight actually reaches your roof, and how much roof area is available for solar panels. What you’ll see (in addition to a heatmap of where sun hits your roof) is something like this:

You can see that 100% of this home’s electricity can be generated by solar power (upper-right box), and going solar is the equivalent of stopping 2.9 metric tons of CO2 emissions.

Project Sunroof also gives you an early indication of the savings and payoff period for your investment. They offer options for Buy, Lease or Loan. And here’s the kind of savings a random home in Northern California might expect:

Buy

Loan

So installing solar on this sample house means you could save $12k-$22k over 20 years, in addition to being a very positive benefit for the environment.

How to get started with solar for your home

So there are a ton of different ways to get started, but I’ll recommend two: PickMySolar, and direct with Sunpower.

PickMySolar / Solar.com – PickMySolar / Solar.com is a portal that makes the whole solar process easy. Instead of having parallel conversations with a number of different installer companies, they help you define the exact system you want, and then the installers bid (compete) for your business. (Note, the link there is a referral link, but by using it you should save $250 on any system you install!) I know some people who have had great experiences with them.

Sunpower – Sunpower designs and manufactures their own solar panels, and has a network of installers in the US they work with. I’m partial to Sunpower because they were very supportive of solar car teams back when I was racing in university. (The link there is also a referral link – I’m not sure if there are any savings with it, though.) They build very high-quality panels, and also use an architecture (inverters on every panel) that have some advantages.

In the end, we ended up going through Sunpower to design and install our system. It’s a long story, but our house has a complicated set of roof panels and only Sunpower could design a system that met 100% of our home’s energy needs, that was within building/fire code, and at a cost that meant that meant we were still saving money. The exact installation company we used was All Bay Solar, who did a great job. (You can also just contact them directly.)

How to pay for solar

We only really considered two options for solar: Buy vs Loan. Leasing can get a bit complicated if you ever sell your home, and I personally prefer owning assets like this.

We ended up going with a loan, mainly to avoid a big cash payment, but we do plan on paying it off well ahead of time. And even though our solar installation was about as complicated (aka expensive) as it can get on a home, our loan payment is about the same or less than our average electricity bill. More importantly, that loan payment is locked in while electricity rates may very well increase a fair bit in the next 10-20 years. (And once the loan is paid off, electricity is essentially free.)

For those curious about these things, the loan is completely separate from our mortgage. The solar loan is backed up by the panels/inverters/etc. themselves. So if we ever stopped paying, they have the right to repossess the panels, but that’s it.

Living with solar

There’s basically no difference to life with solar power, other than an extra box or two near our electric panel. When you install solar, you change your contract with PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) and go to a Net Energy Metering (NEM) agreement. Instead of getting a bill every month, PG&E looks at your energy use across the entire year.

If at the end of the year you’ve taken more from the grid than you’ve put in, you pay the difference. If at the end of the year you’ve contributed more from the grid than you’ve taken out, PG&E pays you. (PG&E does calculate peak/non-peak rates separately.) That said, you’ll owe PG&E roughly 21 cents per kWh if you owe them, but if they owe you they are only required to pay 2-4 cents per kWh. They give you a running estimate of what your bill will be at the end of the year.

But where I definitely see a difference is when I log into pge.com. Here are a couple of screenshots of what we see now:

Monthly view

Daily view

Sunpower app

Sunpower has an app where you can see live and historical data for your home. (I believe other systems can do this – I’m just familiar with Sunpower.) I’ve essentially become an amateur tracker since I can directly see how clouds affect the power being generated by our system!

The other interesting effect I’ve seen is that I’ve become much more conscious of our electricity use at home. I’m much more militant about turning lights off, opening windows to get a cool breeze instead of using air conditioning, and more.

Summary

If you own a home – anywhere in the US – you owe it to yourself to at least check out Google’s Project Sunroof and see if solar is an option for you. And if there’s a chance to both save money and help save the environment at the same time – please take it!

As I write this post, the United States is less than five months away from the 2020 election, which takes place on Tuesday, November 3rd. But there’s a set of less visible elections that are also critical for Democrats to win.

Obviously, most of the 2020 election news is focused on the Presidential election. Electing the head of the executive branch is incredibly important, particularly when the choice is as stark as Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. But electing Joe Biden won’t really matter, unless we also elect a Democratic Senate.

The US Senate is uniquely important because it’s the only legislative branch that influences the judicial branch of the government. Only the US Senate confirms US Supreme Court Justices as well as the 850+ other Federal Judges at the District Court and Appeals Court levels.

Donald Trump’s Appeals Court Judges alone will be devastating to the United States for the next 30-40 years (because they’re lifetime appointments). Trump has named more than 25% of all Appeals Court Judges nationwide because the US Senate (under Republican control) has rubber-stamped them all.

The Nightmare Scenario

Even if Joe Biden wins the Presidency in 2020 none of Biden’s priorities will progress and virtually none of his judicial appointments to correct the Trump era will be confirmed – unless Democrats also take control of the Senate. How do I know? Because of history, and because Mitch McConnell is an evil SOB.

For six of Obama’s eight years in office, Democrats controlled the Senate. Even with control of the Senate it was difficult to get judges approved, until Harry Reid changed the Senate rules so a simple majority vote was sufficient for judicial appointments. What happened in those final two years — when the GOP was in control of the US Senate?

• a US Supreme Court seat opened – and the Senate didn’t even hold a hearing about the President’s nominee
• only 22 of Obama’s judicial nominations were confirmed – the lowest since 1952. (compare that to the last two years of the George W Bush administration, when the Democrats confirmed 68 GOP-nominated judges.)

This also applies to any legislation that Biden will try to pass. If the GOP controls the US Senate, they don’t even have to vote on any Democratic legislation — the Senate could be the graveyard of best intentions.

It doesn’t have to be this way, and YOU can make a difference

The GOP controls the US Senate by a margin of 53 – 47. To win control of the Senate, the Democrats need to win a net of four seats from current Republicans in the 2020 election. And here’s the good news – with one exception, all of the Democratic seats are fairly or very safe for Democrats, and there are eight GOP-held seats that are competitive. Democrats CAN take back the Senate in 2020.

I’ve created a campaign on ActBlue to help Democrats win the Senate, and I’m asking you to contribute.

In donating to this campaign, your money will go to the nine most important Senate races for Democrats to win in 2020.

To Defend:

• Doug Jones (Alabama)

To Win:

• Colorado
• Arizona
• Maine
• Iowa
• Montana
• North Carolina
• Georgia – regular Senate seat
• Georgia – Senate special election seat

I want to also make a note about the importance of setting up recurring donations. Recurring donations are MUCH more valuable to each of these campaigns. When you set up a monthly donation, that campaign can build their plans knowing their future income, which allows them to be more aggressive early. Even a small amount donated regularly can be hugely impactful to a campaign.

To sum up

This country needs a reset – it needs Democrats in charge of the US Senate. A Biden presidency and a Democratic-controlled Senate will need years to correct what was broken under the Trump administration, and that needs to start in 2020.

Please donate to help make this vision come true.

As an American living in London, it took me a while to understand British sports.  Partly because they played cricket instead of baseball, rugby instead of basketball, and football instead of… well… “American football”.  But the thing I learned in the UK that really made me think about how socialist most American sports are was promotion and relegation.

First off, you should know that there are many (many) tiers to English football, from the Premier League all the way down to local amateur clubs.  But at the end of every football season, the top teams from each league are promoted to the next tier above, and the bottom teams from each league are relegated to the next tier below.  Every year the bottom 3 teams from the Premier League are relegated to the EFL Championship League, and top 3 teams from the EFL Championship League are promoted to the Premier League.

In actuality, the top two teams from the EFL Championship League are automatically promoted to the Premier League, and there’s a mini-playoff to win the third spot.  That final playoff match – to win the third promotion – is the most lucrative single match in all of football globally.  Winning it, and the income that goes to teams that play in the Premier League, is worth >$200million to the winning club.  Promotion and relegation is really, really exciting (and heartbreaking).

What I love about this feature of English football is just how truly capitalist it is. Clubs can’t just give up part-way through a year, chalk it up as “a rebuilding year”, and know they can re-start the next season.  If they suck, they’re getting relegated and it’ll impact their top- and bottom-line financially, too.  For as much as Americans love capitalism, our sports leagues are socialist with an unbreakable social safety net.  No matter how bad a US team is they’re still guaranteed a share of TV ratings money, and that there’ll be no competition for their place in the league the next year.  (Can anyone say “Suck for Luck”?)

In the US, the only sport that could feasibly do anything like this is baseball.  There are tiers in the sport (major leagues, AAA, AA, etc), similar or the same number of teams at each tier, etc.  American football and basketball don’t have anywhere near the same depth of lower leagues, and while there are some minor league ice hockey teams they don’t have the same breadth or depth as baseball.

Thursday, March 28th is Opening Day across America for Major League Baseball. In honor of that, I wanted to publish something I’ve been meaning to do for years – a thought experiment around promotion and relegation in baseball.  If baseball teams were promoted and relegated based on their 2018 results, what would this upcoming season look like?

Let’s dig in!

MLB – 2018

Congratulations to the Red Sox, Astros, and Yankees! As the top three major league teams in 2018, they’d be eligible for any further competitions. In English football, this means they’d get to play in the Champions League the following year. In baseball, perhaps there could be some championship series involving teams from Japan, Cuba, etc? (Dare I say it: a truly World Series?)

Commiserations to fans of the Chicago White Sox, the Kansas City Royals, and the Baltimore Orioles. By finishing at the bottom in 2018, these three teams would be playing AAA baseball in 2019. In the Orioles’ defense, they play in the same AL East division as the Red Sox and the Yankees, so it’s tough to compete. At the same time… they only won 47 games in 2018 – oof. (Even bad teams should win 54 games according to Tommy Lasorda.)

Side note – both the best and the worst baseball teams in the major league in 2018 were all American League teams. That seems… weird, right?

The White Sox, Royals, and Orioles would be replaced by the top AAA teams: the LeHigh Valley IronPigs, the Memphis Redbirds, and the winner of a playoff between the Fresno Grizzlies and the El Paso Chihuahuas. It’s safe to say that promotion and relegation would mean there would be WAY more interesting team names in major league baseball!

Imagine how awesome it would be to live in/around Allentown, Pennsylvania — home to the LeHigh Valley IronPigs — and have the Yankees or Red Sox come to town to play in the 8300-seat Coca-Cola Park stadium?

AL/NL	Div	Team	W	L
AL	East	Red Sox	108	54
AL	West	Astros	103	59
AL	East	Yankees	100	62
AL	West	Athletics	97	65
NL	Central	Brewers	96	67
NL	Central	Cubs	95	68
NL	West	Dodgers	92	71
AL	Central	Indians	91	72
NL	West	Rockies	91	72
AL	East	Rays	90	72
NL	East	Braves	90	72
AL	West	Mariners	89	73
NL	Central	Cardinals	88	74
NL	Central	Pirates	82	79
NL	East	Nationals	82	80
NL	West	D’backs	82	80
AL	West	Angels	80	82
NL	East	Phillies	80	82
AL	Central	Twins	78	84
NL	East	Mets	77	85
AL	East	Blue Jays	73	89
NL	West	Giants	73	89
AL	West	Rangers	67	95
NL	Central	Reds	67	95
NL	West	Padres	66	96
AL	Central	Tigers	64	98
NL	East	Marlins	63	98
AL	Central	White Sox	62	100
AL	Central	Royals	58	104
AL	East	Orioles	47	115

AAA – 2018

Triple-A teams in 2019 would be visiting 40k-seat stadiums when they play the White Sox, Royals, and Orioles in 2019. While that could mean a massive impact for those teams, it would also mean that ticket prices could get a lot more affordable in those cities!

The Buffalo Bisons, the Sacramento River Cats, and the Iowa Cubs would all get relegated from AAA to AA for the 2019 season. They’d be replaced by three teams getting promoted from AA: the Corpus Christi Hooks, the Biloxi Shuckers, and the Altoona Curve.

The end of the 2018 AAA season would have included the most lucrative baseball game – a tiebreak playoff to determine whether the Fresno Grizzlies or El Paso Chihuahuas would be the final team promoted to the major leagues in 2019. What a game that could be, with tens of millions of dollars (or more) on the line for the winner!

Team	W	L	Pct	Affiliate
Lehigh Valley IronPigs	84	56	0.600	Phillies
Memphis Redbirds	83	57	0.593	Cardinals
Fresno Grizzlies *tiebreak	82	57	0.590	Astros
El Paso Chihuahuas *tiebreak	82	57	0.590	Padres
Durham Bulls	79	60	0.568	Rays
Oklahoma City Dodgers	75	65	0.536	Dodgers
Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders	73	65	0.529	Yankees
Toledo Mud Hens	73	66	0.525	Tigers
Colorado Springs Sky Sox	73	66	0.525	Brewers
Columbus Clippers	73	67	0.521	Indians
Indianapolis Indians	73	67	0.521	Pirates
Nashville Sounds	72	68	0.514	Athletics
Reno Aces	72	68	0.514	D’backs
Salt Lake Bees	71	68	0.511	Angels
Las Vegas 51s	71	69	0.507	Mets
Gwinnett Stripers	70	69	0.504	Braves
New Orleans Baby Cakes	69	70	0.496	Marlins
Norfolk Tides	69	71	0.493	Orioles
Pawtucket Red Sox	66	73	0.475	Red Sox
Tacoma Rainiers	66	73	0.475	Mariners
Omaha Storm Chasers	66	74	0.471	Royals
Round Rock Express	65	73	0.471	Rangers
Charlotte Knights	64	75	0.460	White Sox
Rochester Red Wings	64	76	0.457	Twins
Syracuse Chiefs	64	76	0.457	Nationals
Albuquerque Isotopes	63	77	0.450	Rockies
Louisville Bats	61	76	0.445	Reds
Buffalo Bisons	61	77	0.442	Blue Jays
Sacramento River Cats	55	85	0.393	Giants
Iowa Cubs	50	88	0.362	Cubs

AA – 2018

The Buffalo Bisons, Sacramento River Cats, and Iowa Cubs would be relegated to AA baseball in 2019, as the Corpus Christi Hooks, Biloxi Shuckers, and Altoona Curve get promoted to AAA.

On the bottom end of the table, the three teams getting relegated from AA to A (Advanced) baseball for 2019 would be the Springfield Cardinals, the Frisco RoughRiders, and the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. These teams would be replaced by the top 2018 A (Advanced) teams: the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, the Winston-Salem Dash, and the Buies Creek Astros.

Team	W	L	Pct	Affiliate
Corpus Christi Hooks	82	56	0.594	Astros
Biloxi Shuckers	81	59	0.579	Brewers
Altoona Curve	78	60	0.565	Pirates
Trenton Thunder	79	61	0.564	Yankees
Montgomery Biscuits	79	61	0.564	Rays
Akron RubberDucks	78	62	0.557	Indians
New Hampshire Fisher Cats	76	62	0.551	Blue Jays
Jackson Generals	75	64	0.540	D’backs
Tulsa Drillers	74	65	0.532	Dodgers
Harrisburg Senators	72	65	0.526	Nationals
San Antonio Missions	71	67	0.514	Padres
Arkansas Travelers	71	68	0.511	Mariners
Pensacola Blue Wahoos	69	68	0.504	Reds
Northwest Arkansas Naturals	70	70	0.500	Royals
Midland RockHounds	68	71	0.489	Athletics
Bowie Baysox	67	71	0.486	Orioles
Tennessee Smokies	67	71	0.486	Cubs
Mississippi Braves	67	71	0.486	Braves
Mobile BayBears	66	70	0.485	Angels
Birmingham Barons	66	72	0.478	White Sox
Hartford Yard Goats	65	72	0.474	Rockies
Chattanooga Lookouts	65	72	0.474	Twins
Reading Fightin Phils	64	73	0.467	Phillies
Binghampton Rumble Ponies	64	76	0.457	Mets
Portland Sea Dogs	63	76	0.453	Red Sox
Erie SeaWolves	63	77	0.450	Tigers
Richmond Flying Squirrels	62	76	0.449	Giants
Springfield Cardinals	60	79	0.432	Cardinals
Frisco RoughRiders	60	80	0.429	Rangers
Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp	55	82	0.401	Marlins

A (Advanced) – 2018

In 2019 the Springfield Cardinals, the Frisco RoughRiders, and the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp would all play in A (Advanced) baseball, replacing the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, the Winston-Salem Dash, and the Buies Creek Astros.

Three A (Advanced) teams would get relegated to A baseball in 2019: the Florida Fire Frogs, the St. Lucie Mets, and either the San Jose Giants or the Down East Wood Ducks. Again, since the San Jose Giants and the Down East Wood Ducks finished the season with the same record, they’d need to play a tiebreak game to determine which team stayed in the A (Advanced) league for the 2019 season.

Getting promoted to A (Advanced) baseball in 2019 would be the Bowling Green Hot Rods, the Lakewood BlueClaws, and the Quad City River Bandits.

Team	W	L	Pct	Affiliate
Rancho Cucamonga Quakes	87	53	0.621	Dodgers
Winston- Salem Dash	84	54	0.609	White Sox
Buies Creek Astros	80	57	0.584	Astros
Palm Beach Cardinals	75	58	0.564	Cardinals
Clearwater Threshers	77	60	0.562	Phillies
Stockton Ports	77	63	0.550	Athletics
Potomac Nationals	74	62	0.544	Nationals
Charlotte Stone Crabs	74	62	0.544	Rays
Lakeland Flying Tigers	72	61	0.541	Tigers
Jupiter Hammerheads	70	64	0.522	Marlins
Lynchburg Hillcats	71	66	0.518	Indians
Daytona Tortugas	69	66	0.511	Reds
Tampa Tarpons	70	67	0.511	Yankees
Dunedin Blue Jays	69	68	0.504	Blue Jays
Visalia Rawhide	70	70	0.500	D’backs
Lancaster JetHawks	70	70	0.500	Rockies
Fort Myers Miracle	68	69	0.496	Twins
Lake Elsinore Storm	68	72	0.486	Padres
Wilmington Blue Rocks	68	72	0.486	Royals
Inland Empire 66ers	67	73	0.479	Angels
Frederick Keys	65	72	0.474	Orioles
Carolina Mudcats	65	73	0.471	Brewers
Salem Red Sox	63	75	0.457	Red Sox
Modesto Nuts	62	78	0.443	Mariners
Myrtle Beach Pelicans	61	78	0.439	Cubs
Bradenton Marauders	56	74	0.431	Pirates
San Jose Giants *tiebreak	59	81	0.421	Giants
Down East Wood Ducks *tiebreak	59	81	0.421	Rangers
St. Lucie Mets	54	76	0.415	Mets
Florida Fire Frogs	51	80	0.389	Braves

A – 2018

Finally, in A baseball in 2019 the Florida Fire Frogs, the St. Lucie Mets, and either the San Jose Giants or Down East Wood Ducks would be replacing the Bowling Green Hot Rods, the Lakewood BlueClaws, and the Quad City River Bandits.

The bottom three A baseball teams in 2018 would get relegated to the next tier down: the Dayton Dragons, the Hagerstown Suns, and the Burlington Bees. They would be replaced by the top three teams from the next tier down.

Frankly, below A baseball gets to be… less neatly structured than A baseball and above. So I’m going to stop this thought experiment here. But it could easily be continued further down to lower tiers of baseball.

Team	W	L	Pct	Affiliate
Bowling Green Hot Rods	90	49	0.647	Rays
Lakewood BlueClaws	87	51	0.630	Phillies
Quad City River Bandits	81	59	0.579	Astros
Lansing Lugnuts	80	60	0.571	Blue Jays
Lexington Legends	76	60	0.559	Royals
Cedar Rapids Kernels	77	62	0.554	Twins
Peoria Chiefs	76	63	0.547	Cardinals
Kannapolis Intimidators	74	63	0.540	White Six
West Virginia Power	71	62	0.534	Pirates
Kane County Cougars	72	66	0.522	D’backs
Rome Braves	71	65	0.522	Braves
Delmarva Shorebirds	68	66	0.507	Orioles
Hickory Crawdads	70	68	0.507	Rangers
Beloit Snappers	69	69	0.500	Athletics
West Michigan Whitecaps	69	70	0.496	Tigers
Clinton LumberKings	69	70	0.496	Mariners
Wisconsin Timber Rattlers	68	71	0.489	Brewers
Augusta GreenJackets	67	70	0.489	Giants
Columbia Fireflies	64	70	0.478	Mets
Charleston RiverDogs	64	72	0.471	Yankees
Asheville Tourists	64	73	0.467	Rockies
Fort Wayne TinCaps	64	74	0.464	Padres
South Bend Cubs	64	74	0.464	Cubs
Greenville Drive	64	75	0.460	Red Sox
Greensboro Grasshoppers	60	76	0.441	Marlins
Great Lakes Loons	60	77	0.438	Dodgers
Lake County Captains	60	79	0.432	Indians
Dayton Dragons	58	80	0.420	Reds
Hagerstown Suns	52	81	0.391	Nationals
Burlington Bees	50	84	0.373	Angels

MLB teams & affiliate performance

Since every major league baseball team is affiliated to one team in every tier of minor league baseball, I thought it would be interesting to analyze both that team’s performance and the performance of its’ affiliates. Check out the table below – the numbers are the placing (1 out of 30) for that major league teams’ affiliate in that league.

The first stand-out team is the Houston Astros. Not only were the Astros themselves in the top 3 of major league baseball, but three out of four of their affiliates would have been promoted to the next league up. The final team would have made it to the AAA playoff and potentially made it to the major leagues, too. I don’t know enough about baseball to understand the full relationships between a team, its affiliates, and affiliate performance, but what the Astros did in 2018 is remarkable.

The Astros could be compared to the Red Sox — while the Red Sox had the #1 record and won the World Series in 2018, all of their affiliates were in the bottom half of their leagues. This could potentially be a concern for the Red Sox. (I’m honestly not sure!)

However, the San Francisco Giants are tied for perhaps the worst record across all major league teams. The Giants themselves were in the bottom third of the major league, and their top-ranked affiliate finished #18 out of 30. One of the Giants’ affiliates would have been relegated, a second would be in a playoff to avoid relegation, and a third would have just missed the cutoff for relegation. Ouch!

The Texas Rangers is about even with the Giants for the worst record, though. Like the Giants, one of their affiliates would have been relegated, and another affiliate would be in a playoff (with the Giants) to avoid relegation. Not only that but their major league team finished one place behind the Giants, and their top-ranked affiliate finished #13 out of 30. Again… ouch!

League	Division	Team	MLB	AAA	AA	A(Adv)	A
AL	East	Red Sox	1	19	25	23	24
AL	East	Yankees	3	7	4	13	20
AL	East	Rays	10	5	5	8	1
AL	East	Blue Jays	21	28	7	14	4
AL	East	Orioles	30	18	16	21	12
AL	Central	Indians	8	10	6	11	27
AL	Central	Twins	19	24	22	17	6
AL	Central	Tigers	26	8	26	9	15
AL	Central	White Sox	28	23	20	2	8
AL	Central	Royals	29	21	14	19	5
AL	West	Astros	2	3*	1	3	3
AL	West	Athletics	4	12	15	6	14
AL	West	Mariners	12	20	12	24	16
AL	West	Angels	17	14	19	20	30
AL	West	Rangers	23	22	29	28*	13
NL	East	Braves	11	16	18	30	11
NL	East	Nationals	15	25	10	7	29
NL	East	Phillies	18	1	23	5	2
NL	East	Mets	20	15	24	29	19
NL	East	Marlins	27	17	30	10	25
NL	Central	Brewers	5	9	2	22	17
NL	Central	Cubs	6	30	17	25	23
NL	Central	Cardinals	13	2	28	4	7
NL	Central	Pirates	14	11	3	26	9
NL	Central	Reds	24	27	13	12	28
NL	West	Dodgers	7	6	9	1	26
NL	West	Rockies	9	26	21	16	21
NL	West	D’backs	16	13	8	15	10
NL	West	Giants	22	29	27	28*	18
NL	West	Padres	25	3*	11	18	22

Summary

Yes, this whole post is a thought experiment. It’s not something that could be implemented easily (the owners would just block it), or efficiently. Rebalancing geographically, the idea that a major league team could be competing with an affiliate team that it runs/controls, the vast economic differences between the major leagues and minor leagues and what that means for revenue sharing are all reason why this isn’t feasible. (Not to mention that there are more minor league teams than just those affiliated with major league baseball — I only focused on MLB affiliate minor league teams because it was the easiest data set to analyze.)

But damn, wouldn’t it just be a lot more fun to have promotion and relegation in baseball? I’d love to see the Red Sox play in a 8300-seat stadium. I’d love the idea that if a team kicks ass they get to play better teams the next year. I’d love, love, love the idea that if a team is too bad they get kicked down into a lower division. Like in English football, the best end of season games wouldn’t just come from the top teams fighting for a championship, but also the bottom teams trying to stay in their league.

Who’s with me?

The most recent blog post here was me talking about a little ActBlue page I had set up to make it easier to donate to a number of critical House of Representatives races all at once – the “Tossup Twenty”.  I primarily built it as a way of making it easier for me to donate to these campaigns – sharing it with others was an afterthought.

Why?  I believe that Republicans need to get kicked out of Congress for gross incompetence.  They tried to destroy the healthcare system for tens of millions of Americans with no plan to address it.  In the height of an economic boom, they passed a tax cut that will cost the economy trillions… completely backwards to how governments should work.  (cut taxes in hard times to grow, increase taxes in good times to build reserves)

So I built the “Tossup Twenty” page, and shared it twice each on Twitter and Facebook – not expecting much to come out of it.  But lo and behold, anyone can become a bundler!  Using the page I set up I ended up raising $8358 from ~30 people.  Except for one person, I’d never met or talked to anyone that donated via my page.

What I’ve learned from this is twofold:

1. there’s value in making your own judgments and helping people make a bigger (or more specific) impact.  I think it was useful for others to quickly donate to a bunch of close races, but aggregating which ones wasn’t easy.
2. people will donate even without any connection.  I had assumed this page would be a personal tool since I didn’t know many people that would donate to a page that hadn’t tried to specifically sell them.  I was wrong!

I now have a benchmark and plan to do a lot more in the runup to the 2020 elections.  And I hope to get some data on the costs of running races in various districts (based on media markets) to help make even more careful choices.

For posterity, here are all the candidates in the “Tossup Twenty” – I’ll be updating how their races turn out, so be sure to check back!

Candidate (District)	Election Eve – 538 Likelihood	Result?
Dean Phillips (MN-03)	85%	WIN!
Katie Porter (CA-45)	83%	WIN!
Tom Malinowski (NJ-07)	78%	WIN!
Elissa Slotkin (MI-08)	67%	WIN!
Kim Schrier (WA-08)	67%	WIN!
Jared Golden (ME-02)	64%	WIN!
Paul Davis (KS-02)	62%	lost
Antonio Delgado (NY-19)	61%	WIN!
Gil Cisneros (CA-39)	58%	WIN!
Dan Feehan (MN-01)	56%	lost
Andy Kim (NJ-03)	55%	WIN!
Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07)	52%	WIN!
Dan McCready (NC-09)	47%	TBD – crazy (!)
Leslie Cockburn (VA-05)	46%	lost
Amy McGrath (KY-06)	46%	lost
Kara Eastman (NE-02)	42%	lost
Danny O’Connor (OH-12)	35%	lost
Brendan Kelly (IL-12)	28%	lost
Aftab Pureval (OH-01)	20%	lost
Joe Radinovich (MN-08)	19%	lost

On an end note (for the record) there are a few other races I particularly care about:

Michigan Secretary of State – Jocelyn Benson is the only choice in this race.  She’s super-qualified, having literally written the book on the job of Secretary of State.  Also – she’s a marathoner and competed in the Boston Marathon while 8 months pregnant — can you say “badass”? — SHE WON!

Minnesota Attorney General – Keith Ellison has to be the choice in this race.  Yes, there are allegations about him that shouldn’t be brushed aside.  But his opponent – Doug Wardlow – is an a**hole.  I was in school with him for years, and he’s always been an a**hole.  He would be a travesty for justice in the state of Minnesota. — HE WON!

Texas Senate – Beto O’Rourke.  If Beto loses, I hope he runs for President in 2020 because he has a way of communicating issues that really resonates with me, and those messages need to be heard as the Democrats nominate a Presidential candidate in 2020.  I don’t have a view on if he could or should win the nomination — but what he says and how he says it would be invaluable to the rest of the field.  (Also, he’s running against Ted Cruz and I love the Al Franken line: “Here’s the thing you have to understand about Ted Cruz.  I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”) — he lost