buddha

hertl signs an 8 year extension in san jose with an aav of over 8 million. so there goes that chance of getting a top center via free agency.

i grew up with ernie harwell and george kell so ive always liked my announcers with a little southern lilt... that said, i like buck and aikman for football. never noticed him for baseball.

i thought the lottery was the union's idea and the owners agreed to it as a concession? maybe it was just the amount of teams in the lottery? regardless, its a way to keep mlb in the news and generate interest and content.

suzuki to the cubs for 5 years $85 million. tidy bit of business for them.

and now the teams are listening to them and theyre pissed about it. "team owners are rich and therefore should be spending $6 million on an exoerienced backup catcher" isnt what im used to hearing from analytics people. but hey, its 2022 and everything is political and the owners are rich and therefore bad people.

also true.

there's been a general shift in the sabr community from "stop throwing good money after bad just to increase your win total by 1.3 wins" to "the owners are so cheap and trying to lose they wont even throw money at trying to increase their win total by 1.3 wins." its been interesting to watch from afar.

reliever performance is very volatile. you're likely to get as good of a performance out of your own guys than plunking down $5 - $10 million on a guy who performed well for another organization last year.

i thought their new defenseman didnt look half bad last night.

what a play by seider on mcdavid.

atta boy zadina! that's what you want to see! quick shot! hey hey!!!! 4-4!!!! marc stahl!

raymond has to be a heavily incentivized deal or else it makes no sense. if they draft a receiver, raymond probably wont even make the team.

poor again from seider and its 4-1

kyrie got 60 tonight.

no cade no care. (but go killian!)

poor from seider and its 3-0

christ....i walked upstairs to get my computer and came downstairs and its 2-0.

well, ive said repeatedly that there is a draft and they're not finished yet, so im not sure who is saying that.

and then brought in two tight ends and they sucked again.

well, i said they need to upgrade their defensive line. apparently you missed all the other guys and just focused on the rookie so you could act incredulous at the suggestion. onzuwerike needs to improve, but he's a young player so i hope he will. everyone else in that rotation other than mcneill needs to be upgraded.

but jack is good. anzalone is not good. in fact, he was bad last year. harris was good, but was it a fluke. we'll see. walker was fine. not great. not bad. the lions secondary had some decent games last year. their linebackers were very poor. their defensive line was - in general - not great, especially against the run. mcneill was good, but onzuwerike, penisini, brockers, williams were not. they need to upgrade all those positions. we'll see how the draft goes and if they address it again there, but again, right now theyre just running it back with the front seven that got thrashed last year and hoping okwara is 100% from an achilles. but its still early, plenty of time to add people.

chark was a good risk to bet on.

im not convinced okudah and okwara will be back to full strength next season. achilles take a long time to fully recover. i like the direction the franchise is headed. let's see who they draft this year before we completely judge the offseason. but so far, i see trouble ahead next year on defense without a lot of internal improvements.

i wouldnt call it a massive improvement. do you remember the eagles game? or the broncos game? or the seahawks game? sure they looked fine against inept offenses like the browns and steelers and bears. but they got absolutely worked in a lot of those games in the second of the season. the lions seemed like a "try hard" team last year (which campbell and co deserve a ton of credit for), but i dont know how well that will translate in the future. otoh, theyre not done yet in free agency or the draft, and i think this is a recognition by the front office that they still have a long way to go before they start competing.

exactly how i feel. the defense was terrible last yeae and the lions' response has been to bring all the players back and give them raises.