mtutiger

Uh huh... And who bears some responsibility in that exactly? Who has spent years nurturing and enabling thus behavior?

Tom Cole sticking the responsibility for failed Republican governance on *checks notes* Democrats lol

To me, it was a really bad sign when the games where CMo, Todd Jones and Petry covered the games without a PBP announcer ended up more entertaining than a typical broadcast. With a better PBP announcer, that wouldn't be the case....

To be honest, the only people thus far who seem hung up on the dollars are the ones saying everyone else thinks so and so costs too much. I dont view free agency in terms of them spending dollars to hit a certain threshold... they could sign someone for the league minimum or $30 mil/year, that doesn't matter to me. I just want them to make good moves that make sense with where they are at. Particularly with this position player crop, there aren't a ton of great options that make a ton of sense... starting pitching is another matter entirely, there's a lot of good money to be burned there if they want to. And I'd be fine with that if the opportunity arose.

It's also a completely legitimate viewpoint, fwiw.

Speaking of strawmen....

I would like to see Greg Gania get the job if he wants it.... he's ML quality and some other org will end up with him eventually one imagines.

Well, who else are you referring to then?

Right, and then when I point out a name that I threw out, who was doing the "scolding" exactly?

Mark Canha had a 2.2 WAR this year. Joc had a 0.6 WAR. And he was about equivalent to, if not better, than Joc in just about every offensive category.

I assume I'm one of the "scolds" you are referring to and I threw out Mark Canha's name yesterday.

Give me a ****ing break

I don't even think they would have to go that far - just going the Fred Upton route (ie. moderate GOP member / caretaker Speaker) would probably be workable. My thing is that, though some GOP strategists in my Twitter feed seem to think it's the Democratic Caucus's job to clean this situation up, in reality, this is sort of the GOP's mess and it's not clear the degree to which the Dems have a role to play in fixing it at this point.

Which gets back to the point that, despite the GOP holding a majority, we do not even know if anyone can even get a majority of that caucus in the first place. It's sort of similar to the initial Speaker votes that happened, I'm not really sure there's much of a role for Dems at this point other than to give nothing away for free and make the GOP figure this thing out.... whether it be through finding someone internally who they can all agree on or whether it's through the Don Bacon types growing a spine and finding someone they can all work with.

The counterintuitive thing about the situation as well is that the same folks that, it stands to reason, would be the easiest for Kev to peel off (ie. Golden, Gluesenkamp-Perez, other moderate Dems) are the same ones who are the most vulnerable in 2024 and who Kev and other GOP Leaders will work overtime to defeat. We'll see when the vote happens, but the incentives just don't line up well for Kevin to get off easy here.

Hmmm

Yeah, McCarthy has poked his finger in the eye of the Dem Caucus repeatedly since become Speaker and has proven himself untrustworthy It's amazing, despite all of this, there is an expectation that the Dems would or should just bail him out.

He did at least speak with Jeffries, so it's possible that neither side is ready to talk at this point and that it may take actual votes for them to talk turkey... from McCarthy's perspective, it makes sense to find out for certain whether Gaetz has the votes or whether this is all bluster before doing any negotiations. Having said that, I don't think people really understand the picture well here.... I think people (media and even here in this thread) are looking at it mostly from the Democratic perspective, but it's important to understand the landscape from McCarthy's vantagepoint as well. McCarthy likely believes (and is probably correct in this belief) that ANY deal with Democrats will be the end of his leadership career past this Congress given the makeup of his caucus and the types of voters who engage in GOP Primaries. Maybe there comes a point in this process where relying on Dem votes for his confidence/supply becomes the best of a lot of terrible options, but we are a VERY long way away from that at this point. And maybe the best leverage he has to maintain the job isn't through Dem votes, but through the fact that there very well maybe no other people who can get the requisite votes from the GOP Caucus, and to the extent that there is anyone who could get the votes, they may not want the job because this GOP Caucus / 4-vote House Majority is basically ungovernable.

I mean, they are pretty explicitly saying they aren't on board, at least as of now. Hence why I said: The point I'm trying to make is that, because of the lack of trust that Democrats have in McCarthy, which McCarthy has himself to blame for really, they should absolutely have a high price for any sort of deal and be willing to take risks in the process. And even setting aside negotiations, I'm not even clear that the bridge can be built because McCarthy, relying on the confidence and supply of Dems for his Speakership, is likely a dead man walking past this Congress. (And he knows it - he knows there isn't some sort of Sorkin-esque happy ending to be had here)

McCarthy reneged on the debt ceiling deal he cut with Biden, so not sure he can be trusted to follow through. That's gonna be the issue here... and why I suspect a lot of folks are underestimating the possibility that Dems aren't gonna vote for McCarthy or "take a walk" during Speaker votes to let him off the hook. Here's a couple of Tweets, both from more vulnerable / conservative members of the Dem caucus on this issue... if members like Golden or Perez aren't on board, he's got a lot of work to do.

Trump wouldn't have the votes to get Speaker IMO

Agreed. But the additions ought to be strategic (ie. adding in areas where the market has actual talent, where players aren't ending up blocked), not just giving Joc Pederson $20 million because he's been around the league a while.

The other side of the coin is that if the Rangers young core doesn't come up and perform, they are finishing in third place, dreaming about one day being relevant. To be clear, the fact that the Tigers young core actually showed promise this year is an argument toward doing more IMO. But I don't think people really understand what the Rangers did when they analyze them. And they also tend to overlook the Mets and Padres, who finished as bad or worse than the Tigers did this year.

Granted free agent SPs will likely still make a lot of money this offseason and all, but this market has a LOT of depth to it.... him walking may just be a risk they are willing to take if they feel they can make other moves on this market.