gehringer_2

I would guess they have an idea it will reduce the spread between the 10yr Tbill and mortgage rates on the theory that housing is being disproportionately hammered. But probably a windmill tilt.

This is both alarming and at the same time silly on the part of the Chinese-a measure of how little they understand their target. What is done more out in the open in the US than formulate Econ policy? Just read the frickin’ WSJ , maybe bookmark the EDGAR site, and save your intelligence budget.

Yup. When you’ve gotten to zero it’s a long way to where rates actually have any behavioral traction.

excerpted from Peter Pomerantsev in today's NYT

that's cold. 🥶

I wonder if the Fed is going to find the discount rate is going to be less effective than hoped anyway because of present psychology. Long term rates are staying stubbornly low, so longer term investment money is still available at a pretty reasonable 5% prime rate. The more the Fed pushes the discount rate, the greater the boost to the psychology that inflation won't last and the less pressure on long term rates. If businesses are looking at slowing down more because of inventory overrun than because of capital costs the discount rate 'hammer' isn't doing much outside, at least outside the banking biz. The other exception is in the housing market, which has slowed big time. But if prices start falling, 6% mortgages might not look so bad either. Given that, maybe the end doesn't come until the consumer runs out of gas after their post pandemic spree (which may be happening apart from anything the Fed is doing) and all the Sturm and Drang about the discount rate ends up an exercise in wagging the dog.... Or maybe not.

correct. Not to mention I don't think even Putin goes for the deal. He doesn't want the nukes out, he wants NATO demilitarized so he can go back to his life's work of reclaiming greater Russia. We need to resign ourselves to defeating him on the ground because he's not going to negotiate any settlement less than a demilitarized Ukraine that he can walk over once the ink dries on the west fulfilling their side of the 'agreement.' People in the West need to learn to listen to what people like Putin actually say instead of their imaginations about what they would like him to be. He's put it out all there. It's foolish to take him at less than his word.

well, he's not in jail yet. But here's hoping.

maybe- that assumes Hinch wants to sit on the sidelines for the rest of his contract term. If he takes another baseball job the Tigers are probably off the hook for some chunk of the remainder of his contract.

Used to be in the RCC world as well. While the US RCC has moved past that mostly in practice, they really have never have doctrinally.

actually, I think you could break guys down into groups based on those that are missing the ball vs those that get their bat to it but hit it less than optimally. That might give you some rational guidance as to what various guys should be working on. Hopefully they do some of that now.

also Yzerman making sure everyone has to fight for their gig.

You have stated that Rodriguez is entitled to his privacy. I don't think anyone particularly argues with that - but OTOH, I don't see that his privacy is invaded by our speculations. We aren't paparazzi snooping around his house or opening his mail or even demanding the Tigers provide us any answers. We're just folks standing around the water cooler wondering WTF is going on with our baseball team - of which he was supposed to be a major part.

tires are a good example of how different technologies evolve at different rates. Tire tech is clearly light years ahead of where it was yrs ago, yet even with all that - tires still are a major limit on race cars. You could easily imagine a technology evolution that might have produced a tire so good that its life/grip/performance was no longer a limiting factor in racing at all. Just put it on the car and forget about it, sort of like the wheel or a spring. But that kind of breakthrough hasn't happened in tires. I suppose basically because while the chemistry of rubber has improved in all kinds of ways, it's still basically the same class of chemistry. A breakthrough like that might require invention of something completely new in material science. And since the current level of tire performance is now so high for passenger car requirements the economic development incentive for a revolution in tire tech probably isn't there. If something new comes along it will probably be by accidental discovery.

yes - it would definitely being even more entertaining if the team were a soap opera and could play as well!

There might be a few women who would take issue with that....

Jacques Cousteau meets Madeline L'Engel.

where-ever he is, he needs to be playing. So if the Tigers were not committed to playing him, they should not have brought him up. So whether you think he should be at Toledo or at Det, either way the fact is he needs to be playing everyday, and the fact that he isn't is just more Tiger player mismanagement.

I guess I thought formalized substance abuse diversion processes were in the CBA? No?

the ~5-6 yrs from ~2015 up to the pandemic were really wasted. The economy was doing fine by then and they could have put things on a firmer basis but they had to keep trying to over rev the engine. If there hadn't been so much money sloshing around beforehand I doubt the exit from the pandemic would have been half this out of control.

So ---- Moulton was a guy who had already done OK in the majors as a util/platoon righty (a couple of part time seasons >800 OPS) and was trying to hang on at the of a short career. Maybe we should stipulate 'guys on the way up'.? OTOH - Madison's is a good comp - and not the most optimist projection! He did get into a few MLB games in his career though.

what I worry about most is the team taking more or less one size fits all approach to hitters. I'm sure there are guys (probably like JD) who want every piece of data they can get - who take notes on everything that happens in the batter's box for a whole career. The problem is that there are also guys who spend a whole career just grippin' and rippin' and the more they try to analyze it the more paralyzed they can become. And players are everywhere in between. One of reasons I worry about this is because the tech gives us a lot of insight on where the batter wants the bat to be in a general way - what kind of path, angle etc. So since we know more about this stuff now, it gets a high priority. But the reality is that is not the most important thing for a batter in the majors. Most batters can get the bat to the spot they pick for it to be, but help with that is still fine and there are guys who will benefit from it. But the real trick for a successful hitter is in the visual/perceptual neurological hardware telling the batter where that spot is accurately - ie. where that spot he needs to get to is going to be when the ball gets to him, and none of the swing analytics stuff actually helps with that part a bit. Now if a batter can process all the data and not have it impact his ability to just see-ball hit-ball, that's great. But if you have any number of guys who literally can't be thinking while they're hitting, then you better be willing to support alternate approaches for them in your org. Now TBF, I have no idea what the Tigers actually do with their hitters - this is just what I worry they might be doing. Like everyone else, I'm just seeing the outcomes.

yeah - the org/Hinch seems to play a lot of favorites where the favoritism is based on non-performance factors. The whole org seem to approach young players in a totally random way. Overplay some, don't give others any kind of shot, makes very little sense in an org that should be dedicated to their emerging players instead of all the also-rans that have been taking up space in the lineup and roster for several years that have no future. They have been constantly half in and half out on playing/promoting young players.

The lack of accountability for the situation with the hitting is unfathomable. Can you imagine where Coolbaugh *and* probably Hinch and Avila would be by now if George Steinbrenner owned this team? Probably Siberia.

More and more every day I think there is something fundamentally wrong with this team's approach to hitting. Whether that is Coolbaugh, Hinch or Avila's influence or some combination it's reaching a point where it's statistically too unlikely that that so many hitters could come to this team either from other teams or from the minors and all crash. You can put JD Martinez on one side of the ledger, and almost every other player who has ever been on the roster on the other.