gehringer_2

I don't follow soccer so I can't include them, but something about football seems to bring out the crazy in people more than other sports. Part of the fun for the rest of us. 🫠

LOL - Lions beat a 5-1 team without the outcome even being at doubt at any time in the 4th quarter and we're firing assistants over game strategy? Tough crowd.

One might note the slight difference between the example of some terrible 'lefty' person being a nobody randomly found on the internet, and a terrible 'righty' person being some one this government is trying to put into a position of official authority.

Ernie knew there would be flak and set it up anyway. It was great.

I don't have the numbers but I think the lions must be running fewer plays per game because Gibbs touches are not up, Goff's attempts are not up, but Montgomery's carries are down. Seems that has to add up to fewer total plays. They are averaging two fewer 1st downs per game. It does seem the power ground game is less effective with the o-Line loses, so maybe that has translated into more dependence on chunk plays which is less Montgomery's game.

reminds me of the old saw about "economists have correctly predicted 7 of the last 2 recessions." Few guys do well in the majors without having shown a lot of promise - though even that does happen occasionally, but a lot of guys show a lot of promise and still don't turn into much. It might be wise to make some distinction between hitters and pitchers though. With modern instrumentation you can measure exactly what a pitcher throws, and know fairly for certain if his stuff can get out MLB hitters. It's command that is still harder to predict as they face better hitters, but you do have a pretty good handle on stuff today that was not available in the past. But with hitters it remains harder to know how they will fare as the quality of pitching goes up because so much of hitting is mental/perceptual, and you don't know where a guy's hand/head limits are until he is tested at those limits by MLB pitching. Now that said, with pitchers the injury risk today is so high that even if you are pretty confident a guy has the stuff to succeed in the majors, whether his arm will hold together long enough to have a good career is probably just a big an unknown as the overall unknowns with hitters, maybe bigger. ⚕️

Speaking of the coaching staff, Petzold reporting Iopoce is gone. https://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2025/10/20/detroit-tigers-anthony-iapoce-first-base-coach-coaching-staff/86726134007/

same here.

The only way we could lose Skubal and be as competitive is if an MLB ready player comes back in the trade and has a break out year a la Austin Jackson at 5 WAR. There are players out there - Aiden Miller might be able to do that, *IF* you can get one back. And along with that we would still need a little luck on the home front development scene like Anderson or McGonigle showing up at >3 WAR. Is it likely, no. Possible, sure. And you generally need a little of that kind of luck to win a WS (unless you are the Dodgers anyway). We weren't supposed to get better last season after the deadline, but we did. Baseball is a very funny game. But that *IF* is still the word that matters. All this discussion boils down to "Is the return good enough to make it worth it." Of course it *could* be, but we will likely never know what was offered unless a trade is made and it plays out.

We had a home built system a UM which I thought was as good as Canvas for some things, but it wasn't as full featured and they converted sometime in the late 'teens. The class fourm addendum, 'Piazza' I was less thrilled with. Just a rather awkward piece of SW and the students did much take to it which made it rather useless.

I think what is funny is that we all have this concept that a robbery like this has to be absolutely brilliant and sophisticated - cat burglar style and all, but this was closer to a smash and grab job. Chainsaws for goodness sake!

is there any detail on what is wrong with his knee? The broken lone bone should not leave any residual deficit. Knee issues are always a worry though.

UM reported Canvas unavailability in A^2 as well.

One of Hinch's eccentricities as a manager is the degree to which he keeps his assistants buried. I don't believe we have ever had a manager who keeps his coaches away from the public to the degree Hinch does. For good or ill that means that as fans we see/hear virtually nothing about anything they do or what they think or their approaches as individuals. I find it a little odd but I guess as long as guys aren't quitting because of it...

And you have to consider the player. Some guys are just natural fielders - in the sense that everything about catching a ball sort of comes to them naturally - they can move with little impact on their confidence - Baez being the example. Those guys don't care where you play them. Other guys have to work at fielding, footwork, etc. A player like that may have competence and confidence issue if you don't let him settle into one position, and that can spill over into hitting etc. So like everything else - it depends.

you are basically conceded that coaching is pointless, which is a defensible but depressing conclusion.

Yup - no lack of unknowns on next season's IF. Javy will 33 next season, so what is left of his bat could fall the rest of the way off the cliff at any point, Torres may or may not return. Any one or two of short, 2nd or 3rd could be open.

I'm not going to take a guess on what Flaherty decides to do, but I will take a guess that if he opts out he's not going to find the kind of market for himself that will make the opt out worth it. I think you see it in the reaction we've had to signings here. There is more upside to signing a mid-level performer that you can trust to perform as predicted, than to signing a guy who is unpredictable even if he has upside. It's too risky/damaging to roster construction, and especially when it's a stating pitcher. Flaherty's peripherals look good because he runs hot and cold, which would be OK if it was one bad *game* in 5, but with Jack it tends to be one bad *inning* in 5, and that's hard to live with, as we have learned.

Been saying that for a long time! 🙂 But Finnie does have something the Wings have been short of beyond Larkin and Raymond, which is the quickness to create space for himself on the ice so he is both synergy and addition.

Without looking there had to be a couple of seasons when they were bad that the line-up turned over 65% in one off-season. OTOH- I imagine for a winning team the % drops to the lower end.

This. It's been really nice to be able to see the third pair come out and not have to immediately expect disaster. 😱

One of the funny things in this one, several times early in the game an Oiler tried to run a Wing hard in the corner of the Wings defensive zone and the Wing sidestepped him. I think I saw at least 3 times - I think once it was McDavid who ended up in a heap. Had to just add to the Oilers' frustration on the day.

Hinch made the observation in the end of season presser that you can't thinking about what you are trying to do once you are in the box, but I think that is where a lot of the team ended up - for some reason they started getting tentative, and that is just death because then you are always behind or in between. IDK - maybe when they are in that kind of funk just drop all the pregame planning for a while to switch it up and clear their minds? Or something else. But the thing that stood out to me is that we didn't hear word one about them having tried anything - so either they treat all that stuff as top secret (certainly possible, maybe likely as Hinch seems to like keeping his assistants totally underground, but why?) or they weren't doing much as a staff to change the mood. Even in the bad old days with Legendary Lloyd we would hear about Lloyd and various players working on this or that to try and help them break out of a funk.

OSU only beat UW by one more point than UM did!

Why do these people hate dogs? Noem, the border patrol, the Hortman killer. Is it because dogs are honest, loyal and most of all, can tell a creep a mile away?