How good is Anthony Rizzo?

In Commentary And Analysis, Major League Baseball by dmick89118 Comments

Anthony+Rizzo+St+Louis+Cardinals+v+Chicago+LiW8X5MrinnlNot long after the Cubs hired Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer, the two traded Andrew Cashner and Kyung-Min Na to the Padres for Anthony Rizzo and Zach Cates. Rizzo had just completed his age 21 season with the Padres and to say it didn't go well would be putting it nicely. Still, he had hit well in the minor leagues and obviously Theo and Hoyer loved what this kid had to offer.

Rizzo was sent to AAA Iowa to begin the season and hit the crap out of the ball. He was promoted to Chicago midway through the season and put together a very strong season. He turned 23 in early August, but for baseball purposes it was his age 22 season (age as of June 30th). It was an old age 22 season, but still 22 according to the way people have traditionally organized it.

For the purposes of much of this post, I'm going to ignore the 51 OPS+ over 153 plate appearances in 2011. Instead, I'm primarily going to focus on the 368 PA of 119 OPS+ baseball. I was curious where that season would rank among first basemen at a similar age if his 2012 was the only season he had.

The question is, what criteria do we use to compare his 2012 to historical results? I went with careers spanning multiple seasons on Baseball Reference's Play Index. It was the first choice to make. Then I had to pick age and obviously we'd want to include younger players because it's even more impressive to do what Rizzo did (or even close to it) while being younger than he was. I also wanted to include the age 23 season for players because Rizzo was close to that and because there really isn't a whole lot of difference between the two. 16-23 it is.

I wanted the first part of a player's career since I'm ignoring Rizzo's 2011 and treating 2012 as his first season. Knowing I'd have to choose plate appearances later, I decided to go with a player's first season through his third season. I'm interested in how he compares to 1st basemen so while a shortstop hitting even close to as well as he did would be far more impressive, it's not relevant to what I want to know.

I decided to go with a player who played at least half his games at 1st base figuring if the player could still play half his games elsewhere, he might be a better overall player, but also a player who will eventually play first base full time. I could probably safely reduce that to 25% and still get a pool of players who were primarily 1st basemen throughout their careers.

Rizzo had 368 plate appearances last season so I used a minimum of 300 PA.

Here's the list:

Player Age From To PA OPS+
Johnny Mize 23-23 1936 1936 469 162
Mark McGwire 22-23 1986 1987 699 157
Jimmie Foxx 17-23 1925 1931 2568 154
Ron Blomberg 20-23 1969 1972 564 150
Jim Bottomley 22-23 1922 1923 748 150
Alvin Davis 23-23 1984 1984 678 147
Lou Gehrig 20-23 1923 1926 1235 144
Willie McCovey 21-23 1959 1961 900 142
Hank Greenberg 19-23 1930 1934 1167 140
Jeff Bagwell 23-23 1991 1991 650 139
Will Clark 22-23 1986 1987 1046 139
Don Mattingly 21-23 1982 1984 980 139
Orlando Cepeda 20-23 1958 1961 2543 137
Earl Torgeson 23-23 1947 1947 487 136
Babe Herman 23-23 1926 1926 554 136
Prince Fielder 21-23 2005 2007 1391 132
James Loney 22-23 2006 2007 486 132
John Mayberry 19-23 1968 1972 931 132
Hal Trosky 20-23 1933 1936 2083 132
Eddie Murray 21-23 1977 1979 2043 131
Bob Robertson 20-23 1967 1970 594 128
Stuffy McInnis 18-23 1909 1914 2545 128
Kent Hrbek 21-23 1981 1983 1246 127
Ed Konetchy 21-23 1907 1909 1655 127
George Sisler 22-23 1915 1916 939 123
George Scott 22-23 1966 1967 1322 122
Don Hurst 22-23 1928 1929 1167 122
Vic Saier 20-23 1911 1914 2060 122
Jason Thompson 21-23 1976 1978 1823 121
Joe Hauser 23-23 1922 1922 408 121
Joe Judge 21-23 1915 1917 901 121
John Olerud 20-23 1989 1992 1507 120
Keith Hernandez 20-23 1974 1977 1321 120
Dick Hoblitzell 19-23 1908 1912 2724 117
Bob Chance 22-23 1963 1964 493 116
Wally Pipp 20-23 1913 1916 1211 116
Ike Davis 23-23 2010 2010 601 115
Freddie Freeman 20-22 2010 2012 1279 113
Nate Colbert 20-23 1966 1969 595 113
Joe Cunningham 22-22 1954 1954 356 113
Fred Merkle 18-23 1907 1912 2066 112
Billy Butler 21-23 2007 2009 1510 111
Justin Morneau 22-23 2003 2004 427 109
Dick Gernert 23-23 1952 1952 407 109
Chris Chambliss 22-23 1971 1972 957 108
Bill White 22-22 1956 1956 568 108
George Burns 21-23 1914 1916 1507 108
Al Oliver 21-23 1968 1970 1119 107
Tony Horton 19-23 1964 1968 1280 107
Pat Burrell 23-23 2000 2000 474 106
Brad Fullmer 22-23 1997 1998 590 106
Hal Chase 22-23 1905 1906 1138 105
Darin Erstad 22-23 1996 1997 834 104
John Ellis 20-23 1969 1972 729 104
Chris Davis 22-23 2008 2009 736 103
Travis Lee 23-23 1998 1998 630 103
Mike Ivie 18-23 1971 1976 912 103
Art Shires 21-23 1928 1930 762 103
Joe Nealon 21-22 1906 1907 1051 103
Mark Teixeira 23-23 2003 2003 589 102
David Ortiz 21-23 1997 1999 402 102
Sean Casey 22-23 1997 1998 363 102
Ted Kluszewski 22-23 1947 1948 408 102
Daric Barton 21-23 2007 2009 799 101
Tony Perez 22-23 1964 1965 335 101
Ed Stevens 20-23 1945 1948 1059 101
Eric Hosmer 21-22 2011 2012 1161 100

Dick Hoblitzell's name is bolded in red because Anthony Rizzo's 2012 would slide right above him and right after Keith Hernandez. If that's all Rizzo had done so far, it would be good for 35th. However, Rizzo's 2012 season had just 368 PA and only Joe Cunningham, Sean Casey and Tony Perez had fewer plate appearances than Rizzo in 2012. The number of plate appearances are also important because if a player has 2000 plate appearances prior to 23 then he was probably more qualified to play than someone who had just 368. Rizzo, though, has over 500 in his career so far so we have to consider that, but there are still many on the list with more than he had.

If we were interested, and clearly I am since I'm writing this, we could take a look at those who performed offensively most similar to Rizzo did in 2012 to get an idea of how he might perform over the next 5 seasons (years before free agency). Here it is:

  OPS+ Notes
George Sisler 160 HOF
George Scott 101  
Don Hurst 112  
Vic Saier 118 played only 4 more seasons over 5 years
Jason Thompson 128  
Joe Hauser 117 played only 5 more years over 7 years
Joe Judge 120  
John Olerud 137  
Keith Hernandez 135  
Dick Hoblitzell 106 played only 6 more years
Bob Chance 88 played only 4 more seasons over 5 years
Wally Pipp 105  
Ike Davis NA Active player

One Hall of Famer in George Sisler and only Bob Chance was worse than average at the plate over the next 5 years. The average OPS+ of these players from the first table was 120 and over the next 5 years the average was 119. I don't believe first basemen have generally had long careers, but I thought it was interesting that in this group, 4 of the players played less than 6 years after the age of 23 and 2 of them didn't even make it 5 seasons.

Prior to now, we've been ignoring Rizzo's 2011 season. So far in his career he has a 100 OPS+, which puts him right after Eric Hosmer on the first list, which is why I cut the list off where I did. Looking at the entire career we find he'd rank 68th on the original list. Several of these guys weren't your average 1st baseman. They piled up the triples and stolen bases, something that Rizzo will not ever do. He has 1 career triple and only 5 stolen bases. That's not a bad thing, but many of these guys were adding value in ways that Rizzo never will.

If we consider the whole career and now look at the most similar players, this is what we get for production over their next 5 years.

  OPS+ Notes
Sean Casey 111  
Ted Kluszewski 118  
Daric Barton 101 3 seasons
Tony Perez 131 HOF
Ed Stevens 31 played only 1 season
Eric Hosmer NA  
Anthony Rizzo NA  
Paul Konerko 114  
Elbie Fletcher 130  
Ken Harrelson 118  
Billy Goodman 106  
Joe Pepitone 109  

The average of this group is 107.

I'm willing to give Rizzo's 2011 less weight than we typically would, but it still happened. What this means is that I think he'll do better than this group, but maybe not as well as the earlier group. But Rizzo is just one player so he could end up being in the Hall of Fame like 2 comparables. He could end up being out of the league for various reasons in short time too. It's probably somewhere in the middle. Expecting a Hall of Fame career is a bit riduclous and anticipating his career ends soon is equally ridiculous.

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  2. GBTS

    I wonder if Rizzo is noticing that rapidly approaching massive orb in the distance.

    “That’s no moon. It’s a Vogelbach.”

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  3. Suburban kid

    Do any of your Chrome-ites suffer from this white screen of death bullshit? I was enjoying this browser for about six weeks and them bam, it turns to shit following the last update. I uninstalled the update and reinstalled the old version, but the fucker updates itself like a fucking robot. So I uninstalled and reinstalled again and set the setting for: Don’t Fucking Update Yourself. But I think the bastard did anyway. Fucking bullshit.

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  5. Myles

    GBTS wrote:

    I wonder if Rizzo is noticing that rapidly approaching massive orb in the distance.
    “That’s no moon. It’s a Vogelbach.”

    I’m probably higher on Vogelbach then anyone I know and Rizzo has nothing to worry about for now. Even the most aggressive approach puts Vogelbach in the 2015 periphery, after which Rizzo will have had 3 season to prove his worth.

    Nice post, dmick.

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  7. Author
    dmick89

    @ Suburban kid:
    I don’t know that I’ve had that problem, but I’ve had issues with Chrome anytime I’ve used it as my browser for more than a week. This has happened on multiple computers with different OS. I think Chrome desktop sucks. Love Chrome iOS though.

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  8. Author
    dmick89

    @ Rice Cube:
    It says:

    if everything goes perfect for the Cubbies, they will win it all in 2015 because, well, everything on the planet went right for them. Hope. Optimism. Great future ahead. Perfect. Everything always works out.

    I think you can figure out what it said based on that. It didn’t offer anything more than that in my opinion. I mean, what team won’t win it all in a few years if everything goes right? Even the Astros would.

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  16. WaLi

    @ dmick89:
    (dying laughing) I was so confused at what happened. I was like “how did GBTS have a post edited by dmick89… and why did he just copy and paste what he said earlier without changing it to something funny?”

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  20. Aisle424

    Myles wrote:

    I’m probably higher on Vogelbach then anyone I know and Rizzo has nothing to worry about for now. Even the most aggressive approach puts Vogelbach in the 2015 periphery, after which Rizzo will have had 3 season to prove his worth.

    Plus, I still think the DH is a real possibility in the NL by then anyway.

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  23. Urk

    Suburban kid wrote:

    Do any of your Chrome-ites suffer from this white screen of death bullshit? I was enjoying this browser for about six weeks and them bam, it turns to shit following the last update. I uninstalled the update and reinstalled the old version, but the fucker updates itself like a fucking robot. So I uninstalled and reinstalled again and set the setting for: Don’t Fucking Update Yourself. But I think the bastard did anyway. Fucking bullshit.

    The only real problem I’ve had with Chrome (i use the desktop PC version with XP) is that, if you don’t clean out your cache pretty regularly, it gets really slow. It also turns into a memory hog, especially if you run a bunch of extensions. I’ve never (crossing fingers) seen any white screen of death.

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  24. Suburban kid

    @ Urk:
    I’ve noticed the memory hogging OK, but until this week I had found it to be a very fast and reliable browser. I currently use Vista unfortunately.

    I looked around and found a lot of other users have this problem. They usually say it happens from visiting sites running Flash, but for me it happens with all sites. (Basically, load any page and you get a white screen. If you move your mouse around you can see where the links are and stuff, but it’s like clicking on a fresh pool of milk.)

    /thought this was the IT help desk

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  27. GBTS

    @EnricoPallazo
    The syllabus to the D.C. v. Heller opinion summarizes the current view of the reach of the 2nd Amendment. If you’re really interested, find the whole opinion online somewhere, it’s pretty interesting.

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  28. Aisle424

    Holy. Shitballs.

    http://deadspin.com/5976517/manti-teos-dead-girlfriend-is-a-hoax

    There was no Lennay Kekua. Lennay Kekua did not meet Manti Te’o after the Stanford game in 2009. Lennay Kekua did not attend Stanford. Lennay Kekua never visited Manti Te’o in Hawaii. Lennay Kekua was not in a car accident. Lennay Kekua did not talk to Manti Te’o every night on the telephone. She was not diagnosed with cancer, did not spend time in the hospital, did not engage in a lengthy battle with leukemia. She never had a bone marrow transplant. She was not released from the hospital on Sept. 10, nor did Brian Te’o congratulate her for this over the telephone. She did not insist that Manti Te’o play in the Michigan State or Michigan games, and did not request he send white flowers to her funeral. Her favorite color was not white. Her brother, Koa, did not inform Manti Te’o that she was dead. Koa did not exist. Her funeral did not take place in Carson, Calif., and her casket was not closed at 9 a.m. exactly. She was not laid to rest.

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  31. EnricoPallazzo

    @ GBTS:
    to me that says that you can possess any weapon that “is in common use at the time”. is that right? because wouldn’t that include tanks and fighter planes and so on? because those are used every day. or does “common use” indicate that it must be something that a decent percentage of the american non-military population is using?

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  32. Suburban kid

    I used to be involved in supplying Palm Pilots to the Mafia.

    Yeah, I was involved in really organized crime.

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  34. GBTS

    @ EnricoPallazzo:
    Yeah, it means weapons that are commonly used by Americans as instruments of self-defense. Which, as the dissent notes, is really bizarre. Basically if enough of the population is using a certain type of weapon, they constitutionalize it.

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  35. bubblesdachimp

    I mean.. There is not a victim as far as bubbs can tell in the Te’o thing as far as bubbs can tell right?

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  38. Author
    dmick89

    Aisle424 wrote:

    It’s not about there being a “victim.” It’s just mind-boggling that something that elaborate and so widely reported could be a complete hoax for SO LONG. It’s unbelievable.

    I think it’s funny that the media never looked into this thoroughly enough. Maybe some of these sportswriters and broadcasters would perform better at their jobs if they took some performance enhancing drugs. We’d be better off if that was the case.

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  42. Akabari

    But seriously, the fact that ANYONE is listening to him for a fucking second that he “met her online” is a complete asshole and ignores all the facts. Yet it seems like ESPN is totally willing to accept it.

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  46. bubblesdachimp

    I finally just read what this thread is about. (dying laughing)

    My thoughts on Rizzo. I expect a .274/353/490 slash or something.

    I am curious what we think he can actually do. I think Rizzo is going to be awesome. Like really awesome. I am drunk but yea. I trust in Rizzo

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  48. Myles

    GBTS wrote:

    I wonder if Rizzo is noticing that rapidly approaching massive orb in the distance.
    “That’s no moon. It’s a Vogelbach.”

    I can’t believe I missed this opportunity earlier, but Vogelbach’s problem is that he can’t rapidly approach anything

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  51. WaLi

    @ Myles:
    This story is so weird. It’s great though. It’s like a train wreck – and like bubbles says, there is no victim so you can just point and laugh.

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  52. Aisle424

    WaLi wrote:

    @ Myles:
    This story is so weird. It’s great though. It’s like a train wreck – and like bubbles says, there is no victim so you can just point and laugh.

    False. My innocence is a victim.

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  55. WaLi

    @ GBTS:
    That’s where I’m at too. That’s the only story that makes sense. My ND coworker is in full denial mode though. It’s great adding fuel to the fire.

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  58. GBTS

    @ Mish:
    I think theres a bit of tragedy if this whole thing is Te’o’s way of covering his homosexuality amidst the football culture of a Catholic University, which I personally think is most likely and is why I’ve kind of backed off. Te’o’s still an idiot and a liar in this scenario, don’t get me wrong, but it obviously changes things.

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  59. GBTS

    Basically, if I were running a fake girlfriend sportsbook, the board would look something like this:

    Gay: +180
    Clueless, Gullible Mormon: +600
    Lying for Heisman Publicity: +850
    Pathologically Insane Person: +5000

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  60. Author
    dmick89

    bubblesdachimp wrote:

    My thoughts on Rizzo. I expect a .274/353/490 slash or something.

    That’s even optimistic by your standards, isn’t it? His career slugging is .402. Even if you discount 2011, which isn’t the best thing to do, he slugged .463 last year. CAIRO projects .469 this year (.348 wOBA).

    One thing to keep in mind is that Rizzo was just plain terrible vs lefties (2011 and 2012). Small sample so far. He had a 62 wRC+ vs lefties in 2011 and 56 in 2012. We can expect that regress to the mean somewhat, but he hasn’t shown he can hit lefties. At all.

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  62. GBTS

    @ dmick89:
    I guess it’s just the most believable scenario to me, why someone would go to these lengths to make a fake girlfriend. I suppose it’s entirely possible he was duped and the victim of an elaborate hoax, but that doesn’t explain why and he his family continually lied about meeting her in person. If you’re the most popular player on the most popular football team in the country, being able to say that your girlfriend that no one ever met just tragically died is a pretty solid answer to the question, “How come I never see Te’o with chicks?”

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  63. Author
    dmick89

    @ GBTS:
    I suppose, but to me this screams publicity. Gain the sympathy of the fans and media around this country and maybe help yourself come awards season.

    I have read very little about this and don’t know if being gay has ever come up. People like sympathy and people even have a tendency to use that to their advantage. That seems like the easiest explanation.

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  64. GBTS

    @ dmick89:
    If you’re going to go the publicity route, then I actually think his story of being duped becomes more likely. Only a complete 100% fucking moron would make up the story of a dying cancer girlfriend from scratch and think it wouldn’t unravel.

    If he actually was the victim of a targeted hoax (because, for example, maybe he’s a gullible Mormon), then maybe the lies make more sense. Maybe Te’o really did think he met his soul mate exclusively through online means and then he lied to the world about the extent of their relationship, either out of embarassment or because of the press he would receive.

    I just can’t believe someone would be stupid enough to make this up entirely and think he could get away with it, even a collegiate athlete. He gave her a name and said what school she attended. That should have taken two seconds to figure out.

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  66. Author
    dmick89

    I don’t believe there’s any chance he was duped. From what I’ve read, he was quite clearly in on this from the start. I don’t know. Seems more likely he’s a dumbass and this was about publicity than it is him hiding being gay since it doesn’t seem anybody else has mentioned that. It sounds reasonable, I’ll give you that, but at this time it doesn’t seem likely. IMO

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  67. GBTS

    One of the bigger questions I have is how the fuck did Stanford not unravel this months ago?

    Stanford University President opens newspaper
    NATIONAL NEWS: HEISMAN CANDIDATE’S STANFORD GIRLFRIEND DIES OF LEUKEMIA
    “Huh. I don’t remember that.”
    Flips page

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  82. Mish

    MB – I got your email and will hopefully look at it over lunch. I definitely will get back to you by the end of the day unless I get lazy. (dying laughing)

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  86. mikeakaleroy

    @ Rice Cube:
    I can’t believe I clicked that link….

    On a related note, my newest Twitter follower apparently writes for Rant but on the KC Chiefs side, so I haven’t yet determined if he’s an idiot too. I’m probably just a jabroni though, bro.

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  87. Mucker

    @ Rice Cube:
    Yeah but what’s Theo supposed to say…”Yeah, we’re building a perennial contender and we hope to get there around 2015-2017. But for 2013 and 2014 we’re gonna fucking suck ass so don’t bother following the Cubs or coming out to Wrigley because we are going to be fucking terrible. Just look at our new motto…..’Because We Have To’. That’s the only reason why I’m coming to the games”.

    He still has to sell the 2013 and 2014 Cubs to the public. That’s a hard fucking job standing behind this current team and trying to be optimistic.

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  92. Myles

    dmick89 wrote:

    @ Mucker:
    It was either me or 424. I wanted to do it, but 424 kept pulling this fake dead girlfriend shit.

    I’m trying to think of a format in which a Q/A between OV and RS could happen and make any sense. Would it be an e-mail back/forth? Are they going to go back and write about it?

    “Dmick89 Should Be Deported Back to Mexico”

    Seriously, what would a “Q and A” session accomplish, besides making them look ever less intelligent than they already are?

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  97. GW

    Lost in all the Te’o talk are a bunch of eyebrow raising moves in MLB the last two days. The Mike Napoli deal with the Red Sox, which was originally 3/$39M has been revised to 1/$5M(!!) with incentives. The A’s gave up at least one and maybe two pretty good pitching prospects for John Jaso (her?). Matt Harrison got a 5yr/$55M extension. And four teams are interested in Ryan Theriot.

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  104. Author
    dmick89

    Myles wrote:

    Seriously, what would a “Q and A” session accomplish, besides making them look ever less intelligent than they already are?

    This is why it just wouldn’t be any fun. It would also be frustrating.

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  105. Myles

    Rice Cube wrote:

    @ Myles:
    I thought the paycut was because he wasn’t hip.
    #rimshot

    Damnit, you’re right. I mis-typed, I knew that.

    For your diligence, I’m giving you a raffle ticket for a lifetime OV membership

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