gehringer_2

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?

Haven't the Mets actually spent more money with less to show for it? The Dodgers are both good at what they do and rich. But I think the one possibly positive outcome if they sweep right through to a WS win, is that the other big market teams are frustrated enough to throw in with the rest of the peons to force some marginal reform, but you probably have to have something happens that splits the interests of the big market team (like the Dodgers running away from the rest of them) because as a group they have enough votes to veto (I think it takes 75% for the owners to change things?) reforms put forward from the rest of the league.

they just need to pull off the win against OSU so Indiana can end up the only undefeated team in the conference.

Losing.

Don't tell George!

I don't think guys care much about that anymore. They live in their own world no matter what city they are in, and especially the guys that sign the 9 figure deals have so much money they can live where they want, keep multiple top end homes, send their kids to school where they want, basically insulate themselves as much or as little as they want from anything about the locale they don't love.

IDK, it's SOP for agents to initially try to get teams bidding against themselves. They all do it, or try to do it, so I wouldn't put much into anything that comes out publicly one way or another because it's all bargaining strategy at this point.

The deep coverage was terrible all day. Even the pick at the end was pure luck - Oden had fallen down and was out of the play when the ball fell in his gut. Underwood is real deal though. being to scramble around that much and not make bad throws/ints is impressive.