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Panthers and Heat send their regards. I think it's easy to lose sight of how little difference there is between an 80 and a 95 win team. It's less than one win every ten games, and a playoff series is only 7 at the most. You can get a long way before such a small difference in odds catches up to you. To me, letting lower performing teams into the playoffs is less an issue because they can't win, than because they can.

Ibanez is definitely on borrowed time, if he was smart he'd pull a Deuce and get "injured" so he can go on the DL instead of the inevitable minor league demotion.

My wife had a biopsy of neck lymph nodes about two weeks ago. We have been on pins and needles. Reults came back benign today!

I found an even worse example than the 68 Bulls: the 1952-53 Baltimore Bullets, with a record of 16-54, made the playoffs, and that's only because they were in the same division as the 12-57 Philadelphia Warriors! The Bullets were in fourth place, 29.5 games behind the third-place Boston Celtics. That's gotta be close to a record spread between third and fourth-place teams. That may not have happened even in baseball, with double the games. So how could this happen? The NBA allowed eight of their ten teams to make the playoffs. Talk about the meaninglessness of regular season games.

Now this is rather interesting. More on the concept here: https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/human-development-index#/indicies/HDI

Tork's savant page is getting pretty red.

Despite disagreements on opinions etc, this is always a place where people will root for you.

Gotta go to my grandsons first Little League game tonight.

Detroit Tigers vs Kansas City Royals Watch: Royals - Bally Sports Kansas City, Tigers - Bally Sports Detroit Listen: Royals - KCSP 610, Tigers - 97.1 The Ticket

And we all know who won the last baseball championship that really counted !!

Another TQOP led Witch Hunt failure...

He also spearheaded the rescue of the economy after the Bush crash, passed Dodd-Frank, stopped Iran from nuclearizing, normalized relations with Cuba, improved America's image abroad dramatically, and, oh yeah, 86'ed bin Laden with extreme prejudice. And he did all of it without even a whiff of any scandal. Obama was no joke.

I think you might have to put “the Affordable Care Act” in the extraordinary column. It was, and is, a big deal.

Most power hitters (we hope he's that) are streak hitters.

I lean hard right but Obama did a good job, I voted for him both terms. I mean, it is hard to find anything really radical or wild he did.

I swear to god, when I clicked through to the article and saw the subhead, I thought it read, "People of color compromise two-thirds of GOP primary field". I had to re-read it a couple times to make sure I got it right. Anyhow, two things about this: It was America itself—in fact, the ideological forebears of the Washington Free Beacon—that came up with the one-drop rule in order to segregate people with any African "blood" whatsoever from polite white society. So it doesn't matter whether Obama's mother was white or not. If you're even partly black, the people around you identify you as black. Not white, or half-white, or Halfrican, or anything else along those lines. You're black. Period. I will bet you dollars to dimes that Tim Scott, whom the article acknowledges had ancestors who were brought to the United States as slaves, has at least a little cream in his coffee himself, basically because his ancestors were brought to the United States as slaves.

And all those regular season victories were made meaningless. Why even play a regular season? Put every team into a playoff pool and draw straws for HFA. Make it really exciting....yawn.

Something to this?

Exhibits A and B: the 1987 Twins and 2006 Cardinals

JEIII was hinting at Gores' involvement today on his pod. saying weaver has his guy, but he isnt hired yet and now theyre having another round of interviews....so someone up the chain isnt buying kevin ollie yet.

One more for now: I love county-level US maps, and this one is super interesting to me: Macomb County is super Catholic, Oakland County is less so, and Wayne County is basically protestant.

Related to the above:

This is from a couple of years ago.

Yes. They were also able to overcome a bumpy start and losing the lead twice. 2 of 3 vs Kansas City and 3 of 4 vs underachieving Chicago would put them at 25-26 going into Memorial Day. 15-36 seemed more likely at the beginning of the season.

It's going to eventually be eight divisions with four teams each, which won't be all that much better. I get that the playoffs are a crapshoot and all, but I would prefer not to have sub-.500 teams making them in the first place. The 1987-88 San Antonio Spurs made the NBA playoffs with a 31-51 record. I wouldn't want MLB to become that.

Like everything else, it depends on the return.

A few years ago we were told of a big snow coming and there was a news story about heart attacks so my wife strongly hinted we get one. I'm approaching 50 so I figured this would be the last one I ever buy. I got the last one at Lowe's, around $900. This was Dec 2021. I've used it three times and once was just to use it when I didn't really need to.

Ibanez has been in a 2 week death spiral and is somehow how worse than Schoop, who at least gives you some D and singles vs. LHP. Carpenter and Kreidler's injuries are keeping them both around. Nevin did not impress but is raking in Tol; hope he gets another look soon. McKinstry and Maton have traditional splits, so that might save Schoop.

A triple double.

ESPN should host a one hour special where he reveals his decision to retire or continue playing.

Alex Lange is establishing himself as a bullpen linchpin, and he’s practically free through next year and cheap for another three years after that. I think he would have to return a position player well into the top 100 who will be ready no later than next year, at minimum. It’s going to take a lot more than another Maton and/or Vierling to pry him from Harris’s warm, live hands.

I would never consider a reliever to be a building block. They tend to have short primes and are more useful to contending teams than building teams. However, given how weak the central division is, I don't know if I want the Tigers to be in re-building mode. They may be able to contend this year and/or next if they can get enough pitchers healthy. They might even consider not trading but extending Rodriguez so he won't opt out. It depends on how well he pitches and how well the team plays the next two months.

This team still needs a lot of help. They are about to trade their best starting pitcher, their only above average one at that. The rest of the rotation are 5th-6th starters. The pen is ok but that of course can change on a dime. The young pitching they do have are all hurt and can't be counted on to provide maybe one decent guy for the rotation. The stariting line up is loaded with second division regulars. And they have one of the worst farm systems in baseball. I think it's more likely they trade Lange and continue building for future than not. And the next year will be another off season of low level aqusitions and roster churn.

I don't believe that for one second.

They arent trading Alex Lange.

What will we get for him?

Holton? Alexander? Foley?

4 BBs... first time since JD Martinez in a Tiger uniform.

Whoa thunk it was even possible to criticize a three-run double! 💀

need better launch angle next time

8 pitches means Lange and his 0.93 ERA will be back for the 9th

You guys jinxed with your Bradley Jr sucks talk.

Other teams have received permission to talk with him so I doubt they are waiting.

Need to petition the Tigers to switch to this next season...aint nobody gonna eff with that

the optimistic scenario is that they are waiting until the playoffs are over to speak with him. maybe that's why they havent made the decision already. the pessimistic scenario is that he's white and therefore not a candidate.

Shame that they will end the streak of the Super Bowl winner hosting the next year’s draft.

Royals fans definitely moved up some notches in my book with the ovation they gave Miggy that night.

Come on, even Jose Cisnero can nail down a three-run save, right? Right?