gehringer_2

The only saving grace is that if they had taken a QB it probably would have been Tua, so we'd still be screwed. Then again even Tua is probably going to end up worth more than Okudah.

You do it because the defense is picketed at the LTG so your man is open in the space short of it. It's up to him to get the yards once the ball is in his hands. Think of it as a running play with a long pitch.... It can work but it helps a lot If you have a receiver with RB skills. If not - not so much.

When I went back and looked at the DVR there is no question. They even had the side line shot straight at the ball down the LOS and you could see the Neb player move past the plane of the ball before the center picked it up.

plus self inflicted setback of nine games where the probably #1 line has to be patched up because Tyler Bertuzzi can't cross the border.

I've been pleasantly surprised by Harbaugh and his team this year, but it's more a matter that I've been more surprised by what Tucker has done. He had a really empty cupboard.

Have to admit I'm liking State's chances. MSU seems to be on more an upswing recently than M. It was nice that they were able to pull out a win here, which is certainly an improvement, but they had enough chances to make it easy on themselves and they didn't, which is sort of the definition of a not quite really good team. And their inability to connect on the long ball when it's open is really a killer. That said, 3 losses would still be a big set forward compared to where they have been.

Plus you have to give big league hitters some credit. Just because a pitch makes 95% of college hitters look foolish doesn't mean that's going to translate to the Majors. To me it looks like the decision was results based - he's trended toward the slider because he was more effective with it than when he was throwing the split more. I've always been partial to the conventional wisdom that prospects with power fastballs are considered premium because 98 is 98 in any league. The results on the breaking ball depend more on the recognition skills of the hitters you are going against so they don't always play as well as pitchers more up the chain. The hardware available to measure spin and ball flight helps with that a lot more than in the past but I'd guess it remains true to some degree even now.

He doesn't panic. I don't know if that's enough, but it's something

This officiating crew is quite the clown show.

perfect

One thing that is certain is that Trump will never pass the torch - if ever there was a case of having to pry something from cold dead hands....🙄 But I agree, the nightmare scenario is the repeat of Trump winning GOP primaries on the strength weak pluralities against a fractured, underfunded 'moderate' opposition, and then having the mass of low information habituated Republican voters put him in office against a more potentially polarizing candidate than Biden - i.e. Harris.

IDK, Santiago purportedly works with these guys tirelessly. In Willi's case I tend to see him as having poor instincts - he doesn't make plays because he doesn't anticipate them and so is late, and he just doesn't have a quick upper body on the DP turn. I haven't paid as much attention to Niko this season - I'm a little surprised he is that low. He does have somewhat stiff hands - you see him sometimes get to a play but then not be able to complete the catch. Short is the best fielder of the group and it's not close, but he's a little unreliable - I would guess it's just errors/misplays that hold back his numbers. I wouldn't think Paredes has enough reps for defensive numbers to mean anything. By the eye test he's looked at least adequate at 2b and 3b. I wish we had had a chance to see Kreidler play. I know the team doesn't need to see him in Det to make a judgment on his fielding but would have been more fun if they had giving us arm chair folks some more off season fodder...

The Lady doeth protest too much?

so there is story at MLB.com about Verdugo wanting to try relief pitching as a two way player next season. Boston is pretty cool to the idea but the interesting thing to me was that Verdugo was talking about the repertoire he used to throw, in high school, which was 2014, and he said he doubted his curve could be as good again as it was without the sticky stuff. That is, as a HS school pitcher in 2014, Verdugo was using stickem. https://www.mlb.com/news/alex-verdugo-wants-to-pitch-for-red-sox

Here's hoping you are 10,000% correct.

I don't think there is anything personnel or subtle in Jones' case. He's a liability with the bat to the point were there were too many OF in front of him and too little belief in the org that anything would change that for there to be any point to him staying. He was just good enough at his best to get some MLB time with a very bad team.

There are now 26 counties in MI with infection rates higher than 50/100K. We aren't very good at this.

too bad the nukes in the East Pacific aren't where they would be doing some good. MAD is something China would understand.

Of course if you could teach long, strong fingers......

the evidence seems to support your view.

Perish the thought.

yeah - I think the article is misleading. 30 yeas ago managers weren't just leaving guys in who were giving up a lot of runs late because they were stupid. Mickey Lolich or even Jack Morris was a better choice in the 9th than your BP. It's not that analytics have changed strategy, it's that the game has changed pitching. For whatever reasons that no-one has been able to do more than speculate about, enough things in the game have changed such that pitchers need to throw more pitches per inning and they are more spent at a given pitch count (more effort per pitch) than they used to be. Net result that the guy in the BP is better now. Just to give an example - when our young guys go out there, they are pushed to use all their pitches right out of the box, and if they don't they get hammered. A young JV would often go through the lineup the 1st time without showing anything but his FB. Well that would leave you in a much better position to face that lineup a 2nd and 3rd time if you haven't had to show them anything. So that is only 15yrs. Why could a top young pitcher get by with just a FB for an inning or two then but it would be considered daylight madness today?

IDK, the QO could be for more than most team are willing to put at risk on a 2 or three year offer. Maybe he will take it.

We delude our selves with our language. No one anywhere is "free" except the guy in hovel at the top of the mountain. We've been telling ourselves we live in "free country" for 200 yrs and it's rot. What we have is a system of "ordered liberty", or what the SCOTUS is describing in the quoted decision. The idea of representative government has never been that anyone gets to be free of restraint. The "Freedom" in a "free country" exists for the individual in circumscribed areas - such as those in the Bill of Rights, but more generally does NOT apply to lack of restraint on individuals but to the freedom of the public to make its laws for itself. There is nothing in the theory of the democratic republic that limits the ability of the public will to constrain and coerce individual action through legislative and executive power, beyond those specific limitations established by Constitutions, traditions, and legislation.

Yeah that make sense. The teams pay for insurance that is provided at the league level - completely solves the problem of guys changing teams and any games around cutting guys to avoid paying medical fees.