gehringer_2

yup. This is getting to be page one of the Holmes playbook - minimize pressure from positional need as much as possible before the draft.

seems like a fair enough deal.

would love have been the fly on the wall in this discussion between Lalonde and Yzerman. I wonder if one of them is happier than the other and which. Well, here's hoping he's got some game

It may not need to be moved. $550M isn't big money for Putin, he may already have resources of that magnitude under his control (or at least strong influence) in the US but how to get them redeployed covertly is probably tricky.

I take refusal by the bonding companies also to be judgement on the strength of his case on appeal. Logically it would seem the most likely outcome is a reduction in the bond requirement - but that's said in total ignorance what the law says about how the bond is determined, IOW how much discretion does any judge have to change the bond? Putin is no doubt faced with a dilemma here. He may be able to get Trump the money but at the cost of exposing so many of his financial moles in the US that the CIA will have a field day following leads generated by the bond money trail even if the connections are initially opaque enough that Trump gets the bond in the short term. Still, it's has to be a job one for Vladdy right now because cutting off aid to Ukraine is probably do or die for him.

true, but what can you do? Their value to the Pistons isn't very high either when the team is playing .176 basketball. And Troy Weaver still has a job.

true, but in the background is that 30 million more people voted in 2020 vs 2016. That's a 21% increase in the electorate and a 23% increase in the Dem electorate. Those are seismic differences. So of course if you look inside those populations you see shifts in what the breakdowns are, but when you look a those breakdowns you are now looking at a different set of people to a larger degree than normal. That is always true to some degree but uncommonly huge between those two elections. The question is how many individual people moved vs how many people added to populations were in a different place to begin with. That's a non trivial question in terms of strategy implications. When you add the state wide election results since 2020, it's also hard to see decay in the democratic voting coalition. So I do get concerned that if effort spent on the unpersuadable comes at the expense of motivating lazy friends it's a potential strategic error. Now in truth, most campaign activities should cut both ways - we hope.

well you have your location and then you have your articulation....😉 It's a common enough ambiguity though. Your calf moves your foot, but if your calf hurts you'd probably say the pain was in your leg. +1 on the graphic ("Scarlett O'Hara's Halloween")

This is true, but it's sort of like brushing your teeth. You don't need to be told you should, and that bad things will happen if you don't, but that doesn't mean your dentist doesn't stop encouraging you because it still helps.

fair enough. Win the battle, without losing sight of the war.

yup. Manafort = Russia.

no doubt 12-14 was pretty good, but 'playoff period' takes me back all the way to '06.

right. Had the core surgery in Jan of '14, but came back and wasn't right. Went to the DL to start '15 supposedly with a tricep issue but Verlander later said he went to his own doc and the real issue was his back. Anyway after a poor finish is '15 he rehabbed differently in the off-season and was pretty much back in '16, but he still wasn't trusting his FB until '17 when he started throwing it up again, lowered his arm angle to where it had been in the past (he had raised it to try to recover ost velo during back and core issues) and by mid '17 he had pretty much recovered the full arsenal. There was a lot of talk about the slider improving in Houston, and maybe it did, it I've always believed it was recovery the classic Verlander fastball in/around May-June 17 before the trade that drove everything else.

and I will say it again - it's being fought 1st and foremost over turn out. The dems don't need to persuade a single soul that they don't like Trump. They only have to remind those that already think that way how important it is to vote the preference they already have. Too much media focus on what might or might not change minds - that's not the relevant battle. It's about motivating those whose minds you already have.

The thing that always got me about Andre was his weak hands. IDK if it was just because he didn't train or maybe it was just his physiology, but you seldom see a big man get the ball just plain taken away from him or so unable to power through a foul to the basket as Andre. And sort of a curious combination in a guy who could rebound so well.

Mistake is at step 5. No reason to give Trump credit for nuance. Ever. Responses like the one in Romad's post are the correct way to go. They may be learning.

some years were obviously better than others, but in the span from 2006 to 2014, reguar rotation starters for the Tigers in a season included: Nate Robertson, Zach Minor, Mike Maroth, Chad Durbin, Brad Penny, Phil Coke, Alfredo Simon, a few seasons of Rick Porcello during his disappearing fastball phase, and a highly disinterested version of David Price. I'd have loved to have Reese Olson in front of any of those guys.

yup - but that doesn't mean you don't make sure that you reach the people that are reachable. One of the postmortems of Hillary's loss was that they there were too willing to concede too many votes they could have won but decided weren't worth the effort to pursue. You really only know that was effective in retrospect.

I'm not knowledgable enough to be able to break down the details, but it just seems teams have adjusted to the game wings like to play and the wings haven't been able to compensate. Coaching or talent? Probably both. My general impressions is that wings almost play a too strictly position oriented game. Maybe it's players without the recognition to be able to switch roles moment by moment with need or maybe Lalonde doesn't want them to, but I think that is part of why Larkin is so much the centerpiece, because that his game.

yeah - I don't get the 'trim the sails' advice. Play hardball and go for the jugular all the way. Today's elections are not Marquis of Queensberry affairs, esp going against Trump. Good Lord, when you have the massive advantage in facts and truth why would not hammer every point as hard as it can be hammered?

Even in the playoff years the number 5 and often number 4 starters were sort band aid and chewing gum guys. Pitchers you just hoped could avoid taxing the BP in the loss while you won a lopsided percentage of Verlander and Scherzer starts. The *apparent* starting depth for this team is pretty extraordinary - maybe we are too close to it to appreciate it. And of course injury could disappear it all in short order, which given recent history is probably what keeps us all from reaching any irrational exuberance.

This is probably true.

Would there be tax liability? If someone pays your bond is that a gift? A loan with an imputed value? Beats me but inquiring minds want to know.

One would hope that is pretty obvious. One's hopes might well be dashed. /..sigh.../

One can never leave the owner out of all consideration when it comes to a sports team - just sayin' Consider a conversation like this between CI and SH: CI: so how are you going to decide on the rotation. They all look so close SH: they are, it's a tough call. But either way they will likely all pitch for us this season CI: If their performance is a wash, I think it would be good for the franchise to be able to spotlight the news of Casey's recovery SH: ?????? Is he gonna say no?