17 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

I think McGonigle is mostly SS and Keith mostly 3B.

I think it was just spring training "let's try him out here just in case"... which will only come into a play in the regular season if a problem or injury occurs.

IMO.

well see 84. I'm going to put my money the other way. I like what I've seen from McG at 3b a lot, and Javy can still pick it at SS.

31 minutes ago, Tigermojo said:

Knowing Hinch, there will be about 140 different lineups.

this, all the way.

49 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

Where does McGonigle and Keith play?  I’d be surprised if they made a rookie bounce between SS and 3B. If he’s 3B, is Keith mostly a DH?

I think McG is going to his main time at 3b. He has played the position well, has a good arm. 

Against a tough RHP, Javy sits, McG goes to short, Keith to 3rd, or they sit Tork and Keith goes to 1st. Colt is pretty much the only other guy on the team now who plays 1st at all. Or they sit Tork and and Javy and go with Colt, , Gleyber, McK, McG, 

And everybody rotates through DH.

With Vierling healthy, when they sit Parker against LHP matt probably gets those PA and Javy stays at short.

1 hour ago, ewsieg said:

China and India

they have very vital interest though because East Asia is where the majority of Persian Gulf exports go. 

I'm a lot less confident the US could sanitize the entire gulf from Shaheeds. Iran has tens of thousands of sq miles of territory they can launch drones from that can range the gulf in minutes. It would be an exhausting task for a navy that is already seriously over extended. The Bush has already had its tour extended from the normal 6mo out to a year. They are at a point where both human and machine fatigue are at their breaking point - as evidenced by the ridiculous 30 hr laundry fire. Never would have happened if the ship had be been back for maintenance on schedule. 

And that doesn't even count that there are several hundred miles of coastline from which Iran can simply float mines out into the Gulf.  How are you going to control that without 5-6 figure commitment of boots on the ground? Who would then be sitting ducks for Iranian attack, trapped between the highlands and the sea. There is a reason that in 40 yrs no American government has been stupid enough to attack Iran outright. These strategic realities have always been known, but the Idiot and the Drunkard  just decided they knew better.

9 minutes ago, lordstanley said:

Yes, I was saying that to a friend yesterday. The Wings picked Larkin #16 overall. The Wings picked Kasper #8, Danielson at #9, MBN at #15 and Bear at #13.  The success of the rebuild is dependent upon one of those four turning out as well as Larkin and another of four turning out as well as a Mantha/Bertuzzi/Nyquist. If instead they end up like Svechnivkov (#19), Cholowski (#20), Rasmussen (#9), Zadina (#6) then we are doomed. Given that Yzerman hit on 3 straight - Seider #6, Raymond #4, Edvinsson #6 - I am cautiously optimistic, but those all were higher picks. 

I think someone has to tell Kasper he is better than he thinks he is. Guy seems to have a lot of tools but aside from being a strong checker he's playing to much of a "don't make mistakes game"  instead of a 'lets win the game' game. I guess you might say the same about Ras, but Kasper is already stronger on his skates and plays a more physical game than Ras ever has. In fact maybe they need to tell Marco "we don't need you to lead the team in hits, make more plays."

4 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Plus its so noisy and it hurts petroleum oligarchs and they need the money and . . .

and think of the birds. Won't somebody please think of the birds?

1 minute ago, Jason_R said:

They’ve tightened up their team defense a bit this year, going from about 3.2 goals allowed per game to under 3.

I think the goaltending improved more than the team D, but I think they finally do look better with Faulk. Apart from the injury callups, they still have too many place holders - Rasmussen, Copp would be a good 3rd or 4th line center but you need more than 9 goals from your #2 center. Kasper makes his presence felt on the ice in some ways, but he's not contributing enough to putting pucks in the net. Kane still makes the occasional 'only Kane can do that' play, but in general is no longer a dominant presence on the ice at all. van Riemsdyk seems to have faded away. 

They basically have Larkin, Cat and Raymond as forwards who make you notice when they are on the ice - that's about it. But even more than a 'star', they need three more guys at least at a Copp level. Maybe Danielson Kasper, and MBN will get there but it would be nice if they would hurry.

6 minutes ago, KL2 said:

Dont think losing a journeyman with a 7 era will be that hard to swallow

 

but he's remade himself, doncha know?

17 minutes ago, Betrayer said:

I'm not sure it's the competition so much as the lack of consistency that defines every second or third string player. If those guys were consistent they'd be starters or stars.

He's getting the same shots he's been getting all along - open threes and open 12 footers. He's just hitting them again like he was earlier in the season.

I'm just hoping he's on the upswing and not the downswing again when we roll into the playoffs.

And can he keep playing 40min/game?

aren't the NIL deals public? In Michigan the salary of every single university employee at UM is public and published once a year by statute - are they letting NIL deals violate the law on this?

his ST numbers with the Jays are busy if nothing else. 13K in 6 2/3 IP but also 7 hits, 4BB and 3 HB!  

4 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

The Persian Gulf is only 100 miles wide over most of its length. You can't make the Gulf safe for shipping just by controlling the Strait, you have to defend it across the whole South Eastern coast of Iran.

according to gameday, the first pitch to McK was almost middle-middle, was called a ball, but not appealed. Did the burn their challenges?

Rockies return the defensive favor by throwing out a Tiger I never heard of at the plate. It was a hit for McGonigle though. 

Tork getting his warning track power swing down pat tonight....🙄

Holton gives up a couple of loud ABs. One scores, Nido erases the other on a CS.

top of 7th TTBDNS

Three times now the Rockies PBP guy (who is terrible BTW) has said McGonigle is starting at Toledo. Go figure.

Just now, IdahoBert said:

Flaherty pulled after 81 pitches and starting to look like he was getting in the groove. “He’s working on things…” Got in 4.2 innings.

great K/BB ratio, lousy WHIP

Parker's bat coming around some.

48 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Bonus porn. Crude looks like the reciprocal; WTI light sweet.

The talks announcement came out, the inside traders already had their bets down. Now it will take day or two when nothing good happens for that bit of false optimism to evaporate (or for everyone to figure out the announcement was purely a market play) and the S&P will resume its down trend and WTI will float back up to $100.

Petzold's prediction today was that Mize would be the guy to fall out of the rotation, I'd put my money on Flaherty. I know everyone loves his peripherals. but I'm not persuaded the ability of his outcomes to lag his peripherals isn't more than just bad luck.

This should make Lee's day (at least the news comes late so there isn't much left to it)

Quote

Major League Baseball names Polymarket exclusive prediction market partner

msn_polymarket_announcement

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

So adorable how the "[the justices would] be shocked at how well organized and secure [elections] are" poster proceeds from the assumption that they are honest and impartial actors.

The way the system is supposed to work, findings of fact - like how an election works, are supposed to be established at the trial court. Unfortunately, that's a distinction that often doesn't make a difference in the end, because the Justices are still using their own belief system and the 'facts' they hold within that belief system, to make their judgements on matters that in theory are only about 'the law' of a case, but never really are.

In a technological age where the Justices are often totally ignorant about the real world context of what they are deciding, I wonder if the fact that appeal courts are not tasked to retry the facts of cases almost becomes an impediment to good outcomes.

The fans have themselves to blame for ticket prices. Teams are going to charge the price that exactly maximizes the tradeoff between price per ticket and number of tickets sold. The only way to force ticket prices down is to not buy them at the current price. If the players were all working for free, teams would still be pricing the tickets exactly as they are and just pocketing the difference.

Payrolls follow revenue, not the other way around. Teams that already have optimized their ticket prices cannot raise more money by increasing them in response to paying higher salaries, rather the salaries they pay follow the revenue they have been able to generate. Thus the teams that generate the highest revenue have the highest payrolls and the teams that cannot generate those revenues cannot just raise raise prices to compete by paying higher payrolls, they must find a way to be competitive (or fail) on a lower cost basis.

Now to some degree there is a way around this if putting a more expensive team on the field creates enough additional demand in your market for tickets and TV so that your revenues rise more than your expense, but since there can be a several year lag between when a team gets expensive and when it's fan base grows, if it does, it's can be a risky proposition. And some towns just aren't going to care much even if you win - (Miami?)

3 hours ago, romad1 said:

Unrelated but related. 

Workers who fall for ‘corporate bull****’ may be worse at their jobs, study finds | Business | The Guardian

I think this describes a lot of MAGA. 

I think this is driven by the combination of FOMO coupled to a lack of intellectual time/energy to spend the time parsing though complex syntax to see if there is actually anything there. The short version would be - "I don't know if any of that make sense and it's too much work to figure out exactly what if anything it all means,  but if I don't get on board I may miss something."

The real problem is when the people spewing it believe there is something to what they are saying when there actually isn't, when the concepts fall apart as soon as they are pushed into clear light.