gehringer_2

at this point whether it would have been is not even so much the issue as whether it should have been. The big laugh in the PSU story was that the funds were 'only' coming from the Athletic dept, not the general fund. Of course if the AD had a surplus instead of a deficit, where would it have gone? At M at least the AD returns surpluses to the GF for general student programs. All dollars are fungible - always.

And to any extent that the Dems may have poor polling on the issue it's really irrelevant because a polled voter may have a vague feeling of dissatisfaction with the Dems as a party over this, but it's unlike to actually stick to his own rep in the next election. In elections it's Presidents that get blamed for everything that happens on their watch. Covid stuck to Trump 1, inflation to Biden, the shutdown will stick to Trump 2. As will be the increase in inflation -assuming we ever actually get a real measurement again.

The only media available in the US that even reports regularly on Africa is the BBS world service, so that's not surprising.

Morant has(had?) freak of nature athleticism, but 6 yrs in is he losing some of that - maybe that's his problem?

Staring a marriage bankrupt from the ceremony probably leads to a poor prognosis.....🫤 (average cost of US wedding now exceeds $30K as per any number of sources)

He thinks he won't get called out till he gets to 5.

Johnson's baby shampoo addiction. It's the left's drug of choice.

It's also fair to note that Biden got flac from the right on the basis that some of his hugs were not considered proper form. So, goose, gander and all that. 🦆🦆

I would also note that PSU, which actually is a pretty good school and certainly could put the money to better use, paid a bundle to get out from under Franklin. Apparently a Congresscritter introduced a bill to cap public university coach compensation liabilities recently but I imagine it's DOA. Still that fact that it's gotten to where that happened at all isn't a good look.

yeah - this is pretty much where we are. Assuming they are trying to move him along ASAP I was a little surprised they didn't send Max to AFL. Hopefull that was because the judgment was made that he had worked so hard over the year he needed the R&R

IDK - That's a world I'm happy to be a disinterested observer of. I am interested in the integrity of major league sports though. Any idea that they could be just another take on WWE (i.e. fixed - whether by entertainment managers or gamblers being immaterial) pretty much drains the interest for me.

83rd percentile offense aint bad for a guy that can't shoot. Imagine if he could.

Family values.

To me the piece that is missing in the Tiger rhetoric about hitting is covering the holes in your swing. Hinch's whole philosophy (at least as stated ) seems to work in contravention to it. Hinch, always, everywhere stresses 'getting good pitches to hit' but to me that flies in the face of the reality that against good pitchers you are going to have a majority of AB where no 'good' or 'mistake' pitch is available. So you just throw up your hands and give in everytime you face a good pitcher? It's the one thing with Hinch that continually leaves me baffled about the way he describes the game. In Parker's case, his plate coverage is just poor. He is an easy out if you keep the ball down. IMO he doesn't need to work on 'getting good pitches to hit', because he doesn't control that. He needs to work on hitting more strikes where they are thrown so he isn't constantly down 0-2. To me this is exactly what Torkelson had to do at Toledo in '24 - ie. stop worrying about hitting the perfect pitch with the perfect swing and get back to being more 'athletic in the box' (his words), though I think he still falls back into that habit. Hopefully Harris keeps his hand in on the selection of hitting coaches because I like what I hear from him better - it is after all just the hitting side of 'controlling the zone'.

doesn't prove much - maybe she swings both ways? 🙃

No doubt, but the question is which is the norm and which is the outlier. Parker has actually only had one good one-half of a season and he is 26. The reality is there just isn't much of a track record there give any GM confidence to pencil him in for 500 AB and expect production. The easiest way to get better offensively and cut down on men LOB is attack the weakest links in your line-up where the most marginal improvement is available (and usually at the lowest cost), which means the bottom third of the order.

I think CF is pretty questionable - at least from the LH batter's box. Parker's performance last season is not going to cut it. OTOH, in '24 Vierling had virtually zero platoon split, so if that holds sending him out against RHP doesn't matter. IDK if that is good enough for the Tiger brain trust though - they love them those LHB.

Yup. Also wondering if Seider has been playing through an undisclosed injury.

We've lived in the same house through a couple of generations now, and even when our kids (echo generation) were young we never got more than half a dozen ToTers - mostly since we live on a short block, the same amount walking around the other side nets you more houses. We've had decades where the average was maybe 3 kids. So we know the neighborhood has turned over again, but tonight was like nothing we'd ever seen here, about 3 dozen kids. That's not much by normal standards but it was off the charts for us. The best one was an inflatable "Kenny". I told him him to stay alive and he laughed and my wife looked at me with no clue. 😱

Not only locations but particular pitches. On a given day an ump may be more give of the outside on a slider than a fastball or tend to be fooled by backup movement on the change etc - so there is a lot for the teams to slice and dice in terms of umpire tendencies. OTOH I think the probability is that umpire tendencies are often quite transient as opposed to reproducible from game to game, and the most successful catchers and pitchers are 'reading' and adjusting on the fly. That's might be the piece that ABS impacts the most, because this year you might deliberately target just off the plate because the ump is giving you the call, but when you know the batter can challenge, how much is it worth the risk of it ending up a wasted pitch (i.e. challenged into a ball)? Has to change the thought process at least at the margins.

Jays run the bases really badly.

Now Chairot gets caught up ice on a breakaway. Berggren in the vicinity but can't do anything. 2-1 Ducks.

Ducks are clearly attacking ASP - not so much physically but trying to take away his space as much as possible and force bad decisions.

ASP get beaten badly, Wings give up a shorty for the 2nd straight night. ASP should have taken the penalty and just hooked the man. Larkin and Raymond get it back. Tie 1-1

Almost all pitches will still be called by the umpire so framing is still going to matter on any pitch close enough that the batter will not have the confidence to challenge, and I imagine a good number of batters will be ordered by their manager not to challenge any pitch because they are known to not have a good enough eye or possibly not enough situational analysis IQ not to waste the challenges.