gehringer_2

All your Denarii are belong to us.

triple overtime.

I guess that was the kind of self-destruct good teams take from bad teams. I was struct that they apparently had zero confidence they could get a FG off after an ordinary play that stopped the clock, which is something you would think any NFL team should be able to do no sweat. 🤷‍♀️

this and the PI on totally William's uncatchable desperation heave that was 20yds from the nearest receiver late in the 4th were making it look like a fix was in.

We hashed this around over Ohtani's contract. If I remember it right, the league takes time NPV (discounted) of all the deferred dollars and divides the total equally over the playing years of the contract - adding to the direct salary for each year for the yearly total luxury tax amount. What I don't know is how they decide on the discount rate - probably some formula based on the prime rate or t-bill rate the year the contract is signed - IIRC the discount rate on Ohtani's money was something in the 3-4% range but I didn't save the calculation - I just remember it was something that seemed reasonable.

One thing is pretty clear, none of those pitchers probably ever broke 90 mph. We talk a lot about spin today but spin works in direct proportion to the loss of time to look, and that's 100% because of increasing velo. The talk about it seems to have died down but moving the mound back a foot or two needs to be considered more seriously.

Well, maybe they saved 30% on their car insurance....

they are just so uncoordinated as a team. So many outlet passes to nowhere, dump-arounds with no-one crashing the opposite boards, they give up so much space to the opposition players in their own zone - too slow/lack of anticipation of where the play is going to be/inability to track their assignments. The fact they have a few guys with PP skill is the only thing that saves them at all. The pain this year better pay off big in the next couple.

don't disagree but Edman is only a moderately bad example. That was 0.9 WAR in 37 games, which is a rate of 3.6 WAR for 150 games. He'd tallied 12 WAR in the previous 3 seasons so that's a solid enough player. Still, $14M is a likely overpay for his age 34 season.

total doofus

US boots on the ground in Mexico is probably the mother of all bad ideas.

This was somewhat variable by region - in pre-revolutionary Boston a good part of the population was not Church of England. Obviously a lot of the aristocracy on both side of the revolution were, but the pilgrim/puritan heritage in New England was independent/Congregationalist and chuch/state separatist.

Jonathan Swift lives.

Lynn could never have been silent for as long a stretch as Shelton was......

But I don't think the Tigers will consider the marginal left handed RF bat value increase from Carpenter to Bellinger to be worth $32M. Personally, I'd rather see them put that money into 3B or SS - though with a better move than Baez was!

You got a point there. But Buffalo is maybe a special case though since it's the only city in the NFL already named after an animal. So by symmetry, shouldn't their team name be a city? Like the Buffalo Londons or something? Also - in the era of EVs maybe the LAC could use a hamster on a treadwheel?

Logic isn't fair. Damn Greeks.

Even the Russians will likely eventually regret getting in bed with those creeps.

FWIW - guys on the radio reported that the Cubs don't want to pay Bellinger - are looking to offload him to anyone that will take his salary. Very inconsistent player to take on though - he's all over the map performance wise.

The think the explanation for pitchers throwing more breaking balls early in a career is simply that being able to train with instant pitch F/X data has allowed pitchers to optimize how fast they can learn to throw a more effective breaking ball, and for that matter how to optimize their velo as well. A trial and error process that used to take seasons can be done in a couple of weeks now. And drifts in mechanics can be diagnosed just as fast/accurately. On the flip side, I think the K zone has also trended wider - things have sort of standardized that if a mere stitch of the ball is within the zone that's considered a strike, and so when umps miss, they give away even more to the pitcher. I don't think it's an accident that wider breaking sliders (sweepers) are coming back into vogue - that would also argue that the pitchers are getting more effective width to the outside of the zone. For the same reason I also wonder if the numbers show a bigger jump in K's for guys coming to the majors since the minors started using more ASZ. Since hitting in AAA doess appear to be up, that sort of argues the differential for guys getting called up has be going up too since MLB hitting does not seem to be going up like AAA hitting is, but numbers would be more convincing.

I guess there is a certain logic to that. You can still see what you want to hit but getting the bat on what you swing at gets harder and/or maybe you lock up on strikes you would have swung at 4 yrs earlier when you would have seen in for 10 msec more.....

True, but if he got him for Norris we could have gotten him for anyone and a bag of balls. 🙄

Still PO's about that trade. Adames has put up 21 WAR and still has a good chunk of career left. We got about 3.5 WAR out of Price (who was also a jerk), and about 10 WAR out of Boyd. And he was my AAT at the time....😥

IDK - could go different ways depending. Maybe if they are both with the same team you get marketing synergies - the Dodgers become all of Japan's team? Or maybe the two guys don't like each other and it can't happen. 🤷‍♂️ In any case you are correct, there aren't many factors that play to the advantage of the Tigers.

It's not really giving away a possession though, if you get the odd one in the first half you give it back in the 2nd. The better question is whether you have a better chance to score on the 1st drive when neither side has seen what the other is doing, or at the beginning of the 2nd half, after you have made adjustments to what the other side is doing. Maybe that's what it comes down to the most - if you think you are smarter than the other guy, defer. If you are up against a guy you fear is better at adjusting than you may be, take the ball before he's seen you play.