gehringer_2

You put a superstar on a good team, you have a better team, you put any better player on a good team, you have a better team. You put a superstar on a mediocre/poor team, you have a better but still mediocre or poor team. The 'Super' part is super overrated. Superstars have toiled in futility all over baseball from time immemorial not being able to raise their teams to any success (recently Trout, Ohtani) and teams with better construction have won more after shedding their superstars (Seattle after losing Griffey and ARod). A good team is always the true sum of the total of it's parts, and two good players will win you as many additional games as one great one. Even from the clubhouse angle, the players that do have a talent for helping to drive their team mates are often not even the best players themselves.

he had a nice little run with 'Feel so Good' and "Bellavia". Went to see him live once back in the day - probably at Meadowbrook. Nice show as I remember.

i know. really dumb.

Unless he is playing through a sub-clinical injury, it's just not that likely a hitter at his age has lost the ability to do what he did as recently as last year. He's probably replaying his verson of Torkelson's travails of last season - thinking he hasn't changed anything when he really has let his approach drift.

The thing that is rich here is that he's invoking the 5th to protect himself - in 2010 Trump was nobody politically. But if MAGA views this today, given all the years having their powers of analysis dulled on Faux New and talk radio, the relevance of 2010 probably won't even register - and even if it does at some level, what they will still hear in the lizard brain is Epstein protecting Trump.

Riley has 1400 career AB with a K rate of about 27%. For him to continue as he is now at over 30% is not inevitable, I don't think it is even likely. But the sooner he fixes it the better.

I would guess Murdoch has people making this very comparison to Trump and asking if he really wants to push that $10B suit.

But it's gotten recently to where he's not hitting enough HR to compensate for the low OBP. His July OPS is under 700, which would make it his worst month of the season by far. He was on fire in June with only 29K in 109 PA = 26.6% K rate. He's is 32% for the season. So it isn't actually true that he has to K to get to the OPS. His best OPS month he had one of his lower K rates.

Pam with the Poison Pellet in the Penitentiary may be on tap as the newest Clue solution.

LA media is probably pretty easy compared to NYC. There is very little out there like the NYPost or the tabloids and ball players are just one more relatively small group of celebs within an already huge celeb culture.

Yup. There is hope for Lange. He seems to have his pitching under control, if he can stay healthy. Manning is just....who knows? When he first went to relief he seemed to have a few good outings - good FB velo, but then he just falls back again.

Yellow python? Just a Sunday afternoon for a Sheila. She'll prolly throw it on the barbie with the shrimp.

pro-WHITE-life party.

Right - this is what Sommers was talking about. It's even OK if he was once a member of the Cabal as long as he was willing to expose it and save America.

The 7yr deal the Tigers signed JV to ended up a good deal, though by today's scale $180M is chump change. 222 games started, 102 Wins and 36 WAR. But as good as Skubal is, he's got a way to go be prove he is in JV's class for endurance - of course JV got that deal not knowing he would endure either......

AT least some of the Ivanka stuff came from an appearance on Howard Stern, where Stern was having a pretty good time leading him on to see how far he would go. I don't know if they destroyed the tape or buried it once he got into office, but if you saw that (which oddly enough I happened to - probably the only 20 min of Howard Stern I've ever seen) no-one could have claimed people were lying about it.

Yes - that certainly has to be a factor.

and it's only getting worse:

Every team always has to be planning for the replacement of every player at some point. It's only ever a difference of when, not if. It seems recently the value of rentals or guys with short control seems to have dropped to the point that you get more total value out of just keeping the player through the final year yourself, take the best advantage you can of the high value low cost proposition through that last year and just plan for the loss. Maybe that won't be true with SKubal and the Tigers get a good deal, or maybe he signs, but I won't be surprised or disappointed if they just keep him through to his FA and then let him walk. I used to think that was bad management but I've changed my mind about it.

Ezra Klein did his podcast this week with Will Sommer whose theory is that the whole Esptein, sexual predator, child-sacrificing-satanic-ritual-liberal-cabal running the world MAGA idee fixe is one that at least certain segments of MAGA will not be able to let Trump 'move on' from. I think what he describes is probably accurate for some segment of MAGAland, the important question though is how much of MAGAland - and I don't think anyone has much handle on that until it plays out. NYT is paywalled but they used to allow a freebie or two per month to guests. IDK if that is still true. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-will-sommer.html?searchResultPosition=2

It doesn't help when the anchor of your lineup goes from 362/404/676 in the month before the July 2 DH, to 167, 212, 458 since that second game. A drop that sudden to a level so far below his norm has to make you wonder if he is trying to play through something he maybe shouldn't.

unfortunately, solo home runs in the 9th when you are down four and being shutout do not a winning ballclub make.

Riley late 2025 turning into Tork early 2024, in the sense of a hitter persuaded he is right when he's not.

Can't say I much like Jake over Keith even with the platoon advantage.

Holton and Reese were fine but it doesn't really matter how you pitch when you get shut-out.