gehringer_2

No question why the Right in the US is so unbothered by the idea of banning books, it pretty clear that none of them read any.

IDK - fair question. I don't know much about Kody's D, but if he has the arm to have played 3rd and can play second, then even if he's not very good at SS he's probably better than Harold at this point, who doesn't seem to be able to make any plays at all. Baez is going to get 95% of the reps there anyway. In any case I'm not so much a fan of Clemens as hoping for any way they get themselves off the addiction to H. Castro. 🦃🦃

I don't know if we will ever find out exactly what is going on but pretty high stakes stuff. Do you suppose the Ukrainians have been able to plant networks all over Russia? Seems far fetched, but then again if the intelligence services are as inept as the army, who knows? Or maybe an indigenous network of Russian revolutionaries taking form? Or maybe also just increasing accidents are the evidence of an imploding society. The explosion at the power plant out in the Pacific East is a particular head scratcher. Even if the Ukrainians had the reach, it would a pointless application of resources. But that's also the kind of thing where brain drain could easily lead to explosive incompetence. Utility boilers are actually quite easy to blow up once you have enough people around them that don't know what they are doing. Something as superficially trivial as lack of routine attention to the feedwater system will do it every time. Just the kind of 'who cares about the maintenance' thing that appears to have become endemic in the Russian state.

I do think you either have to let Baddoo play through it, which is tough unless others start to hit so you can carry him, or you have to send him down. Dropping him to the 4th OF role is counterproductive, he needs ABs. I'd also like to see Clemens in place of Harold. I know he's got a great OBP for now, but zero power, he doesn't field, he's not even a decent 1b (i.e. didn't know when to just get off the bag and stop a bad throw) and when he gets on base he doesn't run well. I have nothing personal against the guy - I just think he does too many things poorly for the OBP to make up for it.

all four MiLB teams got their game in yesterday for the first time a few days FT: Jobe: 3IP, 3H, 2ER, BB 3K HR WM: Wilmer Flores 4IP, 4H 1ER 0BB 7K HR. Colt Keith hitting 288 and W. Perez 297 for the Caps. ERIE: meh TOL: Clemens 2/4 with his 6th HR. (884OPS) What's a guy gotta do?

I think Kreidler has probably nudged past Dingler even if he didn't have the initial projection but neither is a sure thing. The 'best' position prospects in the system now might be Workman, Keith and the two big bonus internationals whose names escape me. Santana(?) and ?

this is exactly what is wrong with American policing. With all the money we spend on police depts a force like Chicago is so manpower short that it can't sit on a problem area every night for even a year if needed to clean it up? It makes no sense at all. Then even already have the surveillance and they still don't go cover it. Here's the contrast in fact. When we were in Suburban Minny, after the real estate crash there was house in the neighborhood that had defaulted and an absentee owner let to a tenant who decided a brothel would be a great way to make the mortgage payments. Once the neighbors figured it out out local cops did exactly that. They came and sat across the street every night taking any plate numbers until the eviction proceeding (which takes about 6mo in MN) was complete. A problem never had a chance to get off the ground. Do enough of that and your cops will end up with the time to sit on things before they become problems.

LOL, I've had friends and family in SoCal all my adult life, and we've driven all over everywhere out there. One day - pretty sure it was in the Winter - so no baseball crowd or anything - we were crossing town and thought we'd try to take a drive by and take a look at the ball park. Couldn't even figure out how to get there when we knew it was less than 1/2 mile from where we were! (pre GPS days). "Circled" a few times and gave up.

Ukrainians deciding to make it real for the Russians.

after 3 K's. After the 3rd K I was wondering if he was suffering from an emotional let down after having gotten to 3000, but it could also be that with 3000 hits in the bag he has decided he is willing to K more to pick up his ISO. You never know quite what is up with Cabrera since the status of knee is always an unknown from day to day.

sure - first off team winning percentages are not a constant - as a group the guys do go through collective highs and lows together so you may really have a team that for two weeks can't win 2 out of 10, plus of the quality of the opposition is not constant so you will see a lot more variance in streak probability than simple stats would predict. And finally if you have 30 teams, something with a 6% chance of happening should happen to roughly 2 of them. OTOH, I think the longest losing streak the Tigers had in 2006 or '13 was 4. Still, the things will tend to cluster around the predicted math.

check the footnotes

Sergei Lavrov clearly vying for this decade's "Baghdad Bob" award. Recent Gems: "We are discussing the end of sanctions with the Ukrainians" "May 9 not relevance to Ukraine operations" "Zelensky has Jewish blood, just like Hitler"

In fairness to the fan base, a 6 game losing streak is pretty bleak point even in a 162 game schedule. I don't think most decent teams have one very often in a good year. If you assume binomial statistics, even a 100 loss team only has a 6% of having a 6 game losing streak.

Also hard to even believe. A dramatic demonstration of the Russians lack of tactical awareness. Who would be fool enough to put all these people in a vulnerable space together? Clearly it was either a case of political imperative trumping what tactical awareness of the vulnerability existed (or alternatively a political need to deny it), or lack of tactical awareness of the insecurity of their position in the 1st place.

the relative drop in the importance of RB and LB probably track together.

The direct military value is of course big, but the bonus is the Russians are also going be turning themselves inside out looking for how so much intelligence is leaking.

if even 20% of his puck possession skill translates to the NHL, he'd probably still be right there with Sieder as the Wings best possession players, and there is nothing the Wings need more.

Might?

In any year that a team has success there are usually one or two players who come out of nowhere and have great years. Maybe Beau?

If Sewell, Ragnow and Decker can actually stay on the field together for a season that will be a big deal.

Barhhart has actually pulled his hitting back to career norms, now he just needs to get some decent throws under his belt. They would be sooo lost without Meadows and Baez. (and Cabrera should not be hitting between them)

Right - and this is the thing with Larkin - he can be a tremendous facilitator, he will catalyze the play of better players next to him if they can ever finally find some. (His PP chemistry with Seider is already fun to watch) For that reason you probably can't get what he should be worth to them in trade. No-one is sacred if enough is offered but I doubt Dylan would draw that kind of offer right now - esp after two season's with injuries.

Mize and Manning both throwing. Sounds like Manning may end up on the more accelerated schedule. https://www.freep.com/story/sports/mlb/tigers/2022/04/30/detroit-tigers-roster-cuts-casey-mize-matt-manning/9603425002/

He made Bellinger work for it, but gave up the expected lead off walk in the end.