gehringer_2

I will agree the court is not really the problem and trying to 'fix' things there is just just as likely to lead to more mischief down the road, the Senate and the EC (i.e Constitution) are the problem.

So the baseline for the performance of public safety by the government in Tx is for parents to expect *more* than nineteen of their children to be gunned down on their average day at school? And surveys say voters prefer the GOP on crime issues?

the SO figured this out years ago.

I can't believe Abbot really said "It could be have been worse"? I'm sure grieving parents and community will love to hear that. What a horse's asz.

exactamundo. Or maybe we check in with Matthew Hale for more historical 'intent'

I'm going to disagree in Brieske's case and my logic is this: What he has to do is throw more breaking balls in competition but he can't go that in a major league game because he immediately gets behind and has to come in with the FB and get hammered, so he won't throw it. So he either stays in the game as best he can without getting enough work on the breaking balls, or he throws it and ends up quickly out of the game. I don't think this is the same thing as learning to sequence or learning ML hitters or even getting on top of his fastball more (Skubal last season). He doesn't really seem to have the pitches down at all yet, so Brieske needs reps doing exactly something he can't stay in games doing at this level. Maybe Fetter is a miracle worker but I don't see how he makes much progress, or at least as quickly as he could against better matched competition. Sure, I hope he throws a shutout next time out, I just don't see how he gets there yet.

and that leaves us with an ill-functioning anachronism of a government when the rest of the democratically governed world was whizzed right past us with far more functional parliamentary systems. The world the founders were writing for is gone - dead and buried; every bit as dead as the Senate of Rome. We can respect the philosophy of government by the people they championed without being bound by same limits imposed by the practicalities in 1787 when those imposed by 2022 are much different. We either rebuild a government for the country we are now or we perish clinging to fantasies of an idealized past. LOL - If the founders were as misty eyed about the past as today's American 'Originalists' are, they never would have overthrown their divinely providenced King.

I should clarify - I think term limits can help, but we over reacted and made them too short in MI. The two terms for Gov is OK but we should have allowed more like 4-5 terms for the House and Senate. There is too much churn and too little expertise in the MI Legislature. I think it's enough to insure the dinosaurs get moved out before they start seeing themselves as the institution - maybe 15 to 18 yrs.

we have term limits in MI, they have been pretty much a disaster. Be careful what you wish for.

I don't know what you mean by 'same.' Democracy is not giving pieces of land equal rights - it's giving people equal rights. Your vote in WY on national policy has no right to count 10 times as much a mine in MI. There is no justification in a democratic country for Wy and Ca to have the same number of reps at ANY government level. As Rob says, it's primarily an anachronism which has come down to us as the result of a lot of troubled history without any purpose in good government. In a proper 'Federal' system states exist to divide government function into more responsive units where optimum, not to disenfranchise voters in one state at the expense of those in another. If you are a US citizen, your vote toward US policies should count the same everywhere, or you really don't have a nation, you have something on the way to being broken.

system is breaking up in on its western side. rain probability now down to <10% for game time. It will be cool though...

When the prayers start solving the problem then we can keep talking about them in the halls of government. Until then, a different tack is needed.

I think only one thing is certain, and that is that the more the minority presses its current undemocratic advantages, the closer the country is going to get to coming apart at the seams. Remember the mantra that started this whole enterprise was "no taxation without representation." Still applies as driving force today. The people in the Wyomings and Utahs can keep thinking it's their appointed destiny to keep the country safe for guns and Jesus, but at some point the CAs and NYs are going to take the ball and go home and WYs and UTs will get very poor very fast.

Think about Cabrera last year, everyone was writing him off in April and trying to figure out how they were going to buy him out - based on 60 terrible AB up to` May 7. Then came about 80 not great but clearly better AB, then about a final 375 AB were he was clearly an asset to the team. So even with Cabrera the calls to dump him began before even 100 AB. Sure, he is a lot older and we know more about the nature of his injuries - but in that case I was on the other side - surprised at how quick people were to write him off.

sure, this too.

that fine, no one said cut him, just minimize his ABs until he looks more like that guy again. Guy's careers hit walls all the time, it happens. You never know, so guys have to prove it every year.

I would stress 'historically'. People are not the same from year to year, let alone month to month. Absolutely, you stick with a guy based on his history up to a point, but at some point you have to accept that the numbers are telling you he is not the same guy, at which point facts about who he was are immaterial. Something changed - health, mental outlook, mechanics, whatever. It's a judgment call but for me after about 100-150 AB you don't owe guys too much based on their career history. That's not to say they won't come back, but at some point you have to make them show that they have found what they lost. You look at peripherals too of course. Robbie has lost his ability to walk recently, and that is more than bad BaBIP luck.

if you mean by 'as we know them' in the sense of citizens of various states having non-uniform voting power at the federal level - YES exactly that.

This is all absolutely true but you can make an even stronger case that nation that the founders envisioned was one where states had primacy so the quality of democracy was more important at the state than Federal level. We are no longer that nation and we cannot go back to being that nation. The growth in the importance of the Federal government is irreversible, both because of the nature of foreign threats, and even more so the size and power of the economic entities and the environment, health and safety threats it must regulate. That has dramatically increased the need for more democracy at the Federal level than the Founders ever planned for.

also no rule that the House has to be 435. As has been discussed here before, enlarging the House tp ~500 would be the most straightforward way to increase the level of democracy in the country at least a little. It wouldn't help with the Senate but it would help with the electoral college.

correct, you are stuck with Grossman in the field full time at least until we get back Reyes or Meadows, at which time a more occasional day would be in order until he (hopefully) pulls out of his funk. But you don't need to maximize his AB when he is struggling. OK - here are our starters' OBP for May (get yourself a stiff drink before reading.....) Grossman: 233 (180 the last two weeks) Cabrera: 346 Daz: 300 (only 10 AB!) Harold: 216 Hill: 189 Jeimer: 260 Javy: 200 Schoop: 260 (275 last two weeks) Torkelson: 279 (342 last two weeks) Barnhart: 222 (200 last two weeks) Willi: 313 (1 for his last 22 and that was a swinging bunt) Willi was basically on fire for 14 games from April 28 to May 16 (34 ab) when he OBP'd at 432. He's was cold before that and has gone cold again since with an OBP of 226. That is his more normal career condition. Number don't lie but a fluke is a fluke. Willi had a similar hot streak in the Covid season (100ab), he doesn't sustain them - and he can't field.... But, putting Willi aside; You absolutely have no lead off hitter - Could try Daz there for a couple of games but I admit that's not likely a winner, after that I might go Jeimer (has some history of walking + SH, then Schoop, Cabrera, Torkelson, then probably Robbie and Javy. In fact it might even help to get to Jeimer thinking OBP and opposite field a little more, he's getting beat inside a lot as a LHB on the big swing.

this is a cannard. You are either a democracy or you are not. If you want to have a chamber that is more deliberative, give them single 10 yr terms, don't elect them non-democratically. Non-democratic election doesn't insulate them from political whims, it just makes them subject to the whims of a tiny minority - not helpful in any scheme. Tiny states should have tiny voices, they represent a tiny number of people. We call that 'democracy'

I posted a top six upthread, or maybe in another thread. Grossman wasn't in it. For me it also goes to the morale issue on the team. I believe you made an argument up thread more or less against the idea of motion for the sake of motion. While that's true enough, I'm not sure I agree with that under all circumstances when you approach from the human factors perspective. Both from a morale and accountability standpoint, I think sometimes doing something just to show you are doing something does come into play simply because you have to demonstrate that the status quo is not becoming acceptable. It's an arguable point where that is, but IMO the Tigers are there.

True, but it's also true that the marginal value of most decisions is small, that doesn't mean it still isn't dumb to ignore it. Weird to see a couple of sabers arguing that we after measure and analyze every piece of quantitative data we just turn around and give management a pass on ignoring it. In favor of what? The 'gut feeling' Robbie is going to hit today?

that's fair enough, all I'm asking for is for management not make things even worse by doing dumb stuff. If a guy has 100AB at a 250 OPB you don't leave him at lead-off, at that point it's just dumb. If you are playing really bad players in preference to guys you could be looking at that at least have some chance to help you, that's dumb. If you are grinding up a young prospect instead of leaving him where he could develop when you have all kind of arms that could be sharing the load, that's dumb. Aesthetically, I can accept losing easier than losing and being dumb. We can argue whose responsibility the decisions are, that fine, I don't claim any insight into that, but dumb is dumb, and since the players know it as well as anyone, I can't believe it helps morale either.