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People who say something is a fact, when it is merely their deeply f’d up opinion are full of shit.

Cartoon was calling 83 knuckle-curve and 86 split. Based on that he threw two in the 1st inning and none in the second. But it also called some of his FB sinkers and he said last week he was not going to throw that anymore so .... His 4 seam FB did seem sort of flat early - that's always been a weakness for Mize (IMHO) but he got 2 whiffs and a foul tip K on the 4 seamer in the 2nd so it seemed to be getting livelier.

Brieske should now be called Smoked Brieske

I’m not twisting your words. You stated a principle by which you claim to abide.

correct data, but that isn't the spin I would give it. It's standard Russian operation procedure to try to beat a civilian population into submission when the probability of winning on the battlefield starts to waver. And Putin is more than glad to go that route because we have to remember that he draws his understanding of state morality in a straight line from Genghis Khan. All decisions have complex antecedents, but I would guess this fact figures higher in Putin's decisions right now that whatever he is thinking about the US. It can also be read as sign of relative desperation because the last thing his generals want is to give the West a real world look at his best/most secret capabilities.

Boyd isn't going to be ready until about June - I think Avila wants depth for April if one of the Kids stumbles. Could be a little understandable over reaction to last April, but on the other hand they also have a bunch of near ready guys trying to prove themselves in the minors that give them a chance to maybe have another pitcher ready to call up by mid season - one of them might provide the same depth for the later part of the season Boyd would have.

He has opt outs after both 2022 and 2023... It's a great deal for both Correa and the Twins... he gets a chance to reset the market after he opts out after this upcoming season. Twins get a guy who can maybe help them compete or, if they aren't competitive, would bring back a haul at the trade deadline. The only real losers here are the Yankees, who essentially took on Josh Donaldson's contract to allow the Twins to sign the guy that their entire fanbase has been clamoring for them to sign.

The good thing about Pineda is that no matter what he’s done this off-season, he is probably in game shape already.

Thanks! Been lurking quite a while but have been insanely busy lately. A Ferrari P1 in qualifying today was enough to make me sign up and gloat a bit.

Steroids

Daz! Caliente!

Brieske smokes the 1st man he faces - and throwing 96. I thought the scouting report said he didn't have that... EDIT: smokes the first 2 men he faces.... and the third out on a weak ground ball.. nice.

The Pirates have underratedly good jerseys.

Its easy for the out of power party to play those games. Requires no evidence, no cost, no discipline. Just backseat drivers yapping away like a crazed Aunt Edna.

“I go by the facts and evidence that has been presented.” - Archie Your evidence?

When I told my buddy about all this work I'd done he sent me this

Bobrob’s 2022 Preseason Prediction #8 –Tarik Daniel Skubal Just like Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal stepped up in his first Major League season and put up pretty good numbers with a 4.34 ERA, 8 wins, and 164 strikeouts in 149 1/3 innings. Most impressive is the strikeouts with a 9.9 K/9, showing that his 10.4 K/9 in 32 innings in 2020 was not a fluke. Only Matt Boyd was able to have a K/9 of over 9 on the Tigers over the past 4 years (2019, 2020). Also like Casey Mize, Tarik Skubal doesn’t have a nick-name and his major flaw is the home run ball. Skubal allowed 35 home runs last year, 3rd most in all of baseball. That is a lot considering he pitched less than 150 innings and didn’t pitch enough to show up on the qualified list. Therefore, his FIP was almost a full run higher than his ERA at 5.09. His xFIP, which uses league average home run rate, is more respectful at 4.06. If Skubal can decrease his home run rate, he should be able to duplicate his ERA from 2021. If not, there’s a good chance that his luck will run out. However, there are a few examples of pitchers who consistently out-performs their FIP, so we’ll have to wait and see after a bigger sample. I think Skubal might be relying too much on his 4-seam fastball. He throws it almost 43 percent of the time and hitters have a .291 AVG/.611 SLG against it. He also throws a changeup, almost exclusively to right-handed batters, and they only hit .176 AVG/.294 against it, with a 40 percent strikeout rate. Yet, he only threw it 12 percent of the time. Overall, right-handed batters had a .808 OPS against Skubal. Being a southpaw, he was naturally better against left-handed batters with a .675 OPS against. Going into 2022, it is clear that Skubal needs to make some adjustments. According to Baseball Savant, aside from the 4-seam fastball and changeup, he also throws a slider (23 percent), sinker (13 percent), curveball (7 percent) and split-finger (2 percent). This may be too much of a variety, especially considering that he throws his 4-seamer over 40 percent of the time. Only entering his age 25 season, he’s likely still experimenting and tinkering with his arsenal. He may need to sacrifice some strikeouts if it means less home runs. Hopefully he has learned what works and what doesn’t and has more confidence in his off-speed stuff going forward. Experts’ Predictions/Projections: Steamer – 158 IP | 10-10 W/L | 4.14 ERA | 1.25 WHIP | 170 K | 53 BB ZiPS – 148 1/3 IP | 10-10 W/L | 4.25 ERA | 1.27 WHP | 160 K | 49 BB THE BAT – 163 IP | 9-12 W/L | 4.63 ERA | 1.31 WHIP | 170 K | 56 BB ATC – 159 IP | 9-10 W/L | 4.10 ERA | 1.24 WHIP | 175 K | 53 BB FGDC – 153 IP | 10-10 W/L | 4.19 ERA | 1.26 WHIP | 164 K | 51 BB RotoChamp – 155 IP | 9-11 W/L | 4.41 ERA | 1.26 WHIP | 167 K | 51 BB CBS Sports – 147 IP | 8-11 W/L | 3.98 ERA | 1.24 WHIP | 138 K | 41 BB ESPN – 162 IP | 9 Wins | 4.11 ERA | 1.23 WHIP | 184 K | 53 BB My Prediction: 2021 Prediction – 32 IP | 1-4 W/L | 5.63 ERA | 1.219 WHIP | 37 K | 11 BB 2021 Actual – 149 1/3 IP | 8-12 W/L | 4.34 ERA | 1.259 WHIP | 164 K | 47 BB 2022 Prediction – 161 IP | 10-10 W/L | 4.08 ERA | 1.205 WHIP | 178 K | 50 BB

I think it's fair to say that Rangers signings of both Seager and Semien seem like significant overpays, although the market was different pre vs post lockout, so idk. I do think Seager getting drunken sailor money and years may have recalibrated Correa's expectations in a way that ran counter to the market... at the end of the day, in order to get Lindor money/years, someone has to be willing to give out Lindor money/years. And that team doesn't appear to exist at the moment

It doesn't make sense to me to give one guy $35 million. That much for Trout? Sure but then he gets injured. You could sign two very good players for that or three solid major league players. Also F the Twins and Correa.

They've been using this tune for bumper music on March Madness. It's sooooo dope

That's ballsy

Hey, Carlos….

What, 3/105 is all it would have taken? Shit, man, we could’ve offered Correa that! Good for the Twins and/or WME for being creative and coming up with it. That gets Minneasota to about 81 wins. Where do the other six or eight wins come from for them to get to October? I guess it’s gonna have to be overachievement.

False. Cruzer don't sleep.

For Ukraine:

This season, probably not much if at all... I do think it's reasonable to expect him back in some form next year. Overall, my point is just that the Tigers are gonna need to cover 25-30 starts at the back end of the rotation on account if not having him, and adding Pineda to the mix is a relatively low cost proposition to add depth in order to cover some of that loss.

The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is..... aw man

All Tyler's and Tyrus's are belong to us.

My guess is that he slots in as a 4th starter (behind Skubal, before Manning) when the Tigers ultimately make that call. But that's up to Al/AJ lol

I like this method as well, even though I would've loved to trade for a premium pitcher I just don't know if would be wise to trade one of our top prospects or young cost controlled guys at this point. Assuming we don't go sign Correa or Story we're probably going to need alot of things to go right to have a legit chance of making the playoffs, I would hate to mortgage the future with the expectation that we are going to be contenders only for the things we need to happen not come to fruition so we end up being a mid 70s to .500 team. I'd rather see if guys like Mize and Skubal progress, Baddoo shows he wasn't a fluke, Greene and Tork make immediate impacts etc. before making a drastic move. If June or July comes and all those things happen and we are right in the thick of things we could always make a more drastic move then.

Tigers are reported to have signed Michael Pineda. Very solid.

MLBtraderumors says that we are indeed signing Michael Pineda.

Yaaaasss. Joisey City in da game! Woot woot! 😂

We had a discussion at work. This is in the heart of the US national security world, so results might not be representative. Question: who had the most guns of all the guys in our office. I was the leader on my team (double digits). The chief of my team had more than me (maybe twice as many as me). The African American former US Secret Service guy on the team across from mine had us both by three laps. He was a legit paranoid type who had guns hidden in every room. US gun ownership is indeed a curiosity to the World. Lots of reasons why this exists.

Honestly as big of proponent as I was against it at this point I may lean towards taking Willis at 2 and hoping we strike gold.

The best part of that is not just his reaction but his comfort and ease in the reaction. No hesitation. He has come across that before and has spent time with kids and people like that. You can tell. Didn’t skip a beat. It was totally natural.

In this survey that I just made up, 1/3 of people are for ending DST, 1/3 of people want to keep it, 1/3 of people don’t really care one way or the other, and the final 1/3 don’t have the math skills to understand it.

Yes! Cruzer and I are on the same page 👍

How much is Petry going in the booth this season? Love the guy but really am not going to be able to stand listening to him try to be a broadcaster. Shep is bad enough. The two of them together? Please.....

Dan just blew right through the compression settings on his mic!

Baddooooo

#2 Kentucky down to #15 St. Peter's

In my wife's job she frequently (well, pre-COVID anyway) spends time in high schools meeting with teachers and principals about student teachers. Today she was in the school my sister-in-law (married to my older brother) teaches at. She poked her head in her classroom and said hello. One of the kids in the class yelled out "Is that your mom?". 🤣🤣🤣🤣