mtutiger

Not watching but line, at least, suggests that Faedo deserves better

Would it kill the offense to, umm, do something?

Very true... I remember watching a game in early 2021 and didn't realize how bad his disease had gotten since the last time I had watched games regularly (I had checked out for a little bit while I was getting my Masters)

There's a blast from the past lol

Cam Maybin for TV, Bobby Scales for radio. That's the ideal right there.

Good God Almighty

Definitely a mere coincidence

Random thought, but I wonder the degree to which the AL Central landscape in 2023 (ie. a slappy fight between mediocre-to-bad baseball teams) influenced the degree to which Scott Harris thought this was an attractive job to take. Clearly the Tigers have a ways to go toward respectability, but from Harris' perspective, it may have looked like an easier turnaround to work with this club and all of its issues than holding out for another job in a much tougher division. Particularly if he did get some assurances about payroll from Pizza Jr if this team started to show itself being closer to contention.

Again, my thing is that he knows enough to adjust when a particular player isn't doing well or when a particular lineup configuration isn't working. There are a lot of managers out there you cannot say that about. He isn't perfect, he does make mistakes, but the Tigers are still lucky to have him in the grand scheme of things.

Tucker Barnhart.... can't believe that trade/signing got so much hype in retrospect.

About as expected... a better than normal night for CNN, but largely underwhelming for a town hall type event

This is 100% accurate. Fans will read whatever they want onto it, but the Occam's Razor explanation is that Eduardo had to deal with something absolutely hellish in nature family wise last year and, whatever that issue is, it has been dealt with and he's back performing and contibuting. And it's not just DD or Petry either, his actual teammates are currently heaping praise onto him (such as Riley Greene yesterday)... I'm pretty sure I have seen quotes from the other starters (Wentz for sure) about how they are learning from him as well. Scott Harris had an appearance on MLB Network yesterday where he was praising him. It's not like this is "fans seeing what they want to see", he legitimately looks like he's in a better place and contributing this year. That doesn't mean that he's gonna stick around or that Harris won't use him as a trade chip, but just as Eduardo appears to have moved on from whatever happened last year, maybe the fanbase should as well.

I'm not sure it's a narrative that I buy either.... especially with all the talk from DD/Petry about how ERod has been working with / talking with Wentz and some of the other starters and trying to mentor some.

He came into last year as the Rangers Opening Day 3B, iirc.... some of that is a reflection of the Rangers not being the best ballclub in 2022, but they also weren't exactly down on him as a contributor going into last year either.

If he does have a good season and stays, some of it could be a reflection of the team improving, but also AJ will have to get some credit for really building that relationship in the offseason and building that trust with him.... think about where we were a month ago when he ****ed up on the bases and got benched and where we are now. A different manager who didn't put in the work to understand their star player may have ended up with a different result. Honestly, ERod would need to be extended for sure just because the AAV of his current deal is too low for how he's pitching, but maybe the same could be said for him in that the org did stand behind him last year when he was away and when the fan base was agitated by whatever personal problems were going on in his life. Not sure that's a guarantee in other orgs.

Regarding AJ Hinch and batting Wolfie cleanup a couple of days ago despite his struggles, notice how he wasn't in the lineup yesterday at all? And probably won't be in the starting lineup tomorrow? I didn't love the decision to bat Maton in the cleanup spot on Tuesday, but to Hinch's credit, when he makes decisions that can be seen as mistakes, he tends to correct them fairly quickly. This isn't Brad Ausmus we're talking about here who would just keep ****ing that chicken over and over again.

If this team finds itself near the top of the division approaching the deadline, I am starting to lean more toward them trying to figure out a way to hold onto ERod or even get him extended beyond this year..... and while I understand the incentives for trading regardless of outcome, there's also the fact that winning, even in this bad division, can be used as a selling point to free agents in the upcoming couple of free agent classes. That this team sees this division as winnable and will do what it takes to compete. Frankly, as much as we complain about the front office/ownership during this last offseason, the fact that the product on the field was so bad last year was no doubt an impediment to building from the outside. But we have a long way to go until we get to that point.... even if they are competing and do decide to trade ERod, I just hope they do so in a way that they utilize the leverage of their position to extract more talent and/or talent that can be usable during this season and not down the road.

My issue isn't with covering him or even giving him this town hall, it's how they executed it. This was not an event that was supposed to inform the audience or get tough answers, it was basically a televised rally for the former President with an audience filled with people who are already in the tank for him. The only real saving grace is that there's a decent chance the ratings weren't all that good anyway (he was going up against NBA/NHL playoffs and there's still a ton of Trump fatigue outside of the hardcore base) and that every time he ends up in the news, his poll #'s among the broader electorate tends to go down.

The idea that CNN's CEO thinks it's the media's job to "make news" seems like a good reason to take the remote and put it on just about any other channel. (Fox/Newsmax/OANN nothwithstanding)

If Licht was interested in correcting some screwups involving overlooking parts of the electorate, he could have started by inviting some of the suburban moms who actually cared about things like Roe being overturned into the audience and delivered a surprisingly poor midterm for the GOP in 2022. But the myth of 2015/16 lives on because the financial incentives for the media dictate that.

That right there is some uncharacteristically bad defense from the Guardians... wow

Something to watch with polling: the breakdown between national polling and state polling. The latter has tended to be friendlier to Dems/Biden since the last Midterm cycle.

And yet Kevin will let him stick around lol

The other part about illegal immigration and the spike in asylum seekers (they are conflated a lot but are two different things, fwiw) is that the debate is completely uncentered around actually fixing the problem and more about short term band aids. Militarizing the border and forcing asylum seekers to apply for asylum in other jurisdictions, those are band aids.... they don't solve the problem of people making the choice to trek 1000s of miles to try to get to the United States. The only real way the problem is truly solved is through policy change and cooperation with origin countries that involve helping to raise the standard of living enough that it dissuades people from deciding to make that trek.... but OTOH, the people who are most animated by the border tend to be the same people who want to indiscriminately cut foreign aid and think it's all a waste of money, so my guess is that we will be dealing with the status quo regardless of who is in office going forward.