gehringer_2

True dat.

Harris wants players to believe they can get better if they come to Detroit. TBF, the Tigers are already decently positioned in their pitching development to be on their way there. The $64 question is whether he can build exactly what the Tigers seem to be missing, which is some kind of hitting instruction/support system that works.

Nice to know that somewhere in the world investors will rebel when a leader comes to office pushing economic ideas that have been discredited for something on 30 yrs now.

ISW with and extra report today on Russian mobilization. Interesting piece of background in the report is that the Russian efforts to convert to an all volunteer force which began in 2008 actually foundered on the inability of Russia to fund the salary costs of a fully professional force. https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-25

Reyes with 300AB. It took a lot of things conspiring together to get him that many. If Greene or Meadows is healthy all season, if Baddoo didn't crash and have to go back to AAA, if Grossman had hit any RHP, if Daz and/or Hill hadn't fallen on their faces, he'd likely have less, or even be gone already. Probalby don't need to worry that all that will repeat to his benefit again.

Yeah - this team is one draft since 3-13.

Close, but no cigar

OTOH, Riley with a big boy AB there.

Reyes just a little bit overmatched there....

nailed it. Of course you have to wonder if Maggie the profiteer fell into the gig because no-one else wanted it.

Cameron can't hit RHP. Reyes is not good but he's not significantly weaker from either side.

Maybe he'll throw in martial law to deal with unruly recruits as well. So much for "Special operation - nothing to see here...."

LOL - if any one wonders why Javy keeps swinging at those sliders, it's beause sometimes he hits them. His 3rd hit comes a ball he laced to left that was a foot outside. go figure...

I don't see any likely scenario where Baez is not the SS next season. Schoop 50/50 to be gone, Cadelario 70/30 to be gone. Cabrera bought out. Minimal starting point for any climb back.

I haven't seen anything about in about 3 weeks on whether BP got the Whiting refinery in Chicago back fully on line - another screw up there would be something that could spike midwest prices. It's not because of crude prices - they are still falling.

he who lives by the cupcake, dies by the cupcake.

yeah - short of covering a muffed kick in the end zone you couldn't score any faster.

Average luck will tend towad average. The Tigers are not likely to suffer another year of craptastic misfortune like this one any time soon. The trick is trying to figure what was bad luck for players who will rebound and what was players that have to go. Which all comes down to player evaluation. The org needs to be able to figure out which guys are doing it right but having bad luck vs the guys who are not going to get better - or exactly what the org has been failing at for the last several years.....

it sort of weird in the NBA right now - the big men can dominate statistically in the regular season, but the guard/swing dominated teams can run them off the court in the playoffs. Makes "who is better" an 'it depends' question.

Unitl I see learn something to change my mind, I'm still going with the thesis that somehow as a team, Coolbaugh and the data team had the Tigers too focused on the wrong things at the plate. That said, I have no idea what role Hinch either did or didn't play in it. I think what Kaline used to say remains true, that as a hitter you have to have an idea what the pitcher's plan against you is, but beyond that, you have to look for strikes and swing at them. Everything else in a hitters head as a pitcher delivers is counter productive. It goes to what Harris said - you have to command the zone, and the only way to do that is by swinging at pitches in the zone and taking pitches out of it. No data about analytics or a pitcher's general tendencies or any other global information (other than scouting about a pitcher's possible 'tells') actually helps you at the instant you have to decide about *this* pitch. Recognition of *this* pitch always needs to be the focus.

the mortgage assumption thing just seems like concept from Mars when viewed today. I think it goes mostly to the way banking has changed from a business that makes it money on loans to one that makes as much of its money on fees and derivatization. Those mortgages were assumable because no-one thought about the loss of income from forgoing new origination fees, because banks didn't charge those fees - the money was in the income from the loan, so they just didn't care if the holder of the note changed - and note this was an era when banks & S&Ls (another quaint anachronism) actually held mortgages - they didn't just originate them and pass them off to securities bundlers.

Market down across the board, 2% for the S&P, 3% for the Russell. Oil at $78. If late buyers don't emerge the loss for the week will be 5%.

the problem is there are way more 18 yr olds than the military can use - it's a professional army now and they don't want lots of guys for one or two years, they want people who stay long enough to develop deep skills. If you are are going to do a national youth service program the military would only be a small piece of the program today - the rest would have to be civil services - and you end up with a political problems doing that because if you have a million youth doing some public service, you are probably displacing some people today who are gettin paid to do some of it. Those aren't impossible impediments to a national program but it's the kind of thing that reduces political enthusiasm for it as soon as it ever moves past the talking stage.

I'm going to be curious to see if they (try to) carry fewer pitchers next season. Sounded like Harris was talking about a deeper position rotation with more flexibility to matchup against oppostion pitching. That would normally imply more lef/right options but that requires a longer bench. The current (past) regime used a very long bullpen and tried to make up for the short bench with switch hitters, but the problem is we've had too many guys who have been switch hitters in name only, and in particular switch hitters who have not hit RHP well.

sounds about right