gehringer_2

It's a lot easier to talk about freedom not being free when it's a matter of sending someone else's kids to war, instead of biting the bullet to resize your institution and get off the federal trough.....

Giving Malloy another chance to drop one in left too.

I don't think he has pitched well enough for anyone to be interested. I guess he had to decide if he'd rather sign a minor league deal or hang 'em up.

If Cobb is expected back around May 1, Mize and Jobe will probably spend the month worrying about who gets sent back. That (worrying about it) probably won't benefit either of them but such is life.

In Tony Paul's podcast with Avila he asked him about Jobe and Al mentioned JV's starts in 2005 when he had all this off the chart stuff but still got hammered by MLB hitters. Just for comparison, between college and the minors JV had thrown 450 innings prior to 2006. Jackson is at 252 IP since he left HS - that's pretty green even for a guy with great stuff. OTOH, that's about where Skenes was before last season - but Skenes is a freak even among the freaks that make up the MLB pitching population.

Another one down - Beck reports that Maeda is out of the rotation sweepstakes - will start the season in the pen. So Skubal, Flaherty, Olson, I'm going to say Mize is in, which leaves the last decision as Montero vs Jobe. Montero's results today were fine as far as they went, but NY didn't bring much of the team.

that's a joke Chas!

9 runs now in the other game. AJ clearly didn't divide his troops correctly.

all things being equal, Montero probably should go north over Jobe, but all things are never equal.

Dan&Dan talking about Torres leading off for the Tigers. I sort of doubt it. In NY he had Judge, Stanton and Soto behind him, with the Tigers he might be the #1 power threat rather than #4.

hard hit ball by Javy get's BaBIP'd

Dan&Dan talking about Jobe getting hit hard in his last outing - a simulated game.

Malloy has hit better this Spring than I expected - enough the make sending him back to Toledo less of a slam-dunk than I expected. If they had any certainty about Baez - particularly playing 3d, then I could see Ibanez being on thin ice, and if Baez hits and plays 3b, Ibanez will still probably be the eventual casualty - but not for now I don't think. I could see them just carrying the extra hitter early in the schedule and waiting to see who gets hurt or plays themselves out of a job.

assume Torres is gone next season, then 1st base is going to shake out based on the relative value of Keith vs Torkelson as hitters - IOW it's up in the air. If Torkelson hits another 30+ and Keith continues as a high average low ISO hitter, we are going to see Torkelson back at 1st. If Torks crashes (again) and/or Keith finds starts finding the seats more often, Torkelson has either become a decent RF or is playing in a different jersey. I don't mind that uncertainty - as long as the team maintains the flexibility to go with whichever happens. And I wouldn't completely exclude the possibility Torres plays some 3rd this season. If the team lets it be his decision done on his terms, they might get a different response than the Yankees got by just trying to drop it on him. In recent years around the league 3B has gotten to be a higher premium position than 2b. If Gleyber is trying to build his FA bona fides, that fact may eventually penetrate his perspective to the Tigers' benefit.

this one will be interesting to watch. So far Keith has not shown as much flexibility on stretches as Tork. Spencer was getting to where he could do a respectable split.

I don't get this one - seems like daylight madness, especially given that it's one of Trump's best demographics.

The expedition time to Mars and back compares to Magellan's expedition. Note that Magellan started with 5 ships, only one completed the trip and that was without Magellan himself. Not to mention that Magellan had an infinite supply of fuel (the wind) a pretty good chance of finding food anywhere he found land or shallow water (also hostile natives of course). What would you even do if someone died on the trip? You'd pretty much have to dump the body in space.

It's not the Latin of course, it's that Vatican II was first stirring of reform of the absolutism (and patriarchy) the RCC. A tragically large % of the human race finds that being read rules is more comforting than having to make decisions for themselves.

but if you ask them if they approve of Trump reducing government you will get an equally if not more lopsided 'approve' so there is a built-in paradox around any question like that. Which ends up winning the day for the voter, the specific or the general? I tend to believe that the approval on the second proposition weighs more heavily than the disapproval on the first. Not to even ask how many people polled thought the question was about Trump cutting their local school board? To me the abuse of process is the bigger issue here, but Americans seem to understand so little about their government that those concerned with process are probably the minority. The MAGA certainly don't care about process. I certainly hope it's true that the moves at Education are unpopular enough to hurt him with his own supporters, but I'm not going to bank on it yet....

but some of what he is doing is going to play well. Outside hard liberal circles - which is to say maybe 70% of the population - no-one is going to miss the department of education - people sense it's not a core function in a federal system and objectively the country's K-12 education has not done any better for its existence. This is the kind of thing where it's fine for the Dems to say they disagree but going into end-of-the-world histrionics about it when most of the public either doesn't care or disagrees isn't the best way to show the public you care about what they do.

yup

LOL - My parents ended up eloping because of friction between the two local sects of the Armenian Orthodox Church. When it comes to religion, every sect with two or more members is ripe for schism. Most recently in the US you have friction within the RCC from people who want to go back to the Latin mass, divisions inside the Baptist church over politics, the Methodist Church in the US just split itself up over LGBTQ rights and for a long time the Lutherans have had various synods in the US that don't agree on things. Judaism is thoroughly subdivided. Sunni and Shia cheer each other's deaths thoughout the ME. Within about ten minutes of any religious group deciding to form a new community, someone decides they have to start making rules for everyone else - and the same wheel turns 'round again.

Holland looks like he has the physical tools to be a great defender if he's willing.

lets hope once bitten twice shy.

hard to argue the signing have been the downfall, but even if the players on their way up through the system will improve them, they will still have trouble winning long term if the FO doesn't do a better job in the trade and FA areas. It's a three legged stool, draft/FA/Trades. The better you do at all three the better overall.