mtutiger

Ill take the under on Miggy getting 350 ABs anyway

Man, Ty Alexander is sorta wearing thin with me

OTOH, Jarvy is very much *not* doing it all these days

Honestly a good question, when is his rehab done? Sunday? He seems awfully rehabbed to me lol

Man, Vierling.... dude is doing it all these days lol

First time getting a long stretch with Bobby Scales.... he's fantastic, and hope he gets the job full time whenever Jimmie P retires.

Cabrera makes a lot of sense, the general consensus is that he'd average a game a week, and he had his game last night. Baez has been scuffling so an off day makes sense. As for Schoop, sooner or later he's gonna be gone. The real question is whether they pull the trigger when Tyler Nevin is ready to come up or whether it happens afterward.

Even beyond New York, there were other special elections where Dems lost but overperformed the fundamentals as well last year. Largely, that stuff was just ignored as November approached. Political journalists seemed to assume that just because there Dobbs headlines had receded from view, inflation was still an issue, etc. that it didn't matter to people and it was just incorrect.

I would be curious to hear your thoughts given your familiarity with the area.... I guess one theory that I have is that the issues that Youngkin scored on the suburbs regarding schools may have been more related to COVID shutdowns than anything to do with culture wars, and that salience is now largely gone given that the pandemic has receded. Obviously Dobbs is a factor as well (that hadn't happened at the time of Youngkin's election), but either way, there's a trap that the media falls in when extrapolating results from a race in their backyard to other parts of the country.

I'll add one -Jake Rogers

Just my two cents, but there are two things going on here: one, for most of the people in the industry, the 2016 Presidential Election and the shock of it is the most formative event in their careers. And I don't know if it's because of the cultural differences between them and the base of Trump's supporters (ie. highly educated vs. more WWC) or what, but I think they have a tendency to define the Midwest swing states heavily based on the perception developed during this election. When in reality, the region is more complicated than that.... they ruminate a lot more on diners in the Midwest than they do, say, Kent County or the WOW counties, and it causes them to miss the boat a *lot* Two, a lot of these people sit in either New York or Washington/VA suburbs when they are opining on these races. Particularly the forecasters, like Wasserman or Amy Walter, but a lot of the journalists as well.... I wouldn't say that there isn't a role for their jobs or that they don't have more insight on these races than the average person, per se, but most of their interaction or insight is likely coming from campaigns and not so much from on-the-ground insight. And the downside to relying on individual campaigns in reporting or forecasting these races is that these individual campaigns absolutely can influence the coverage or get the reporting / spin that they want, even if it's completely bull****. There are a few good ones out there.... I don't love how Dave Weigel from the WaPo lets his bias show through at times, but the guy is actually out there reporting and, more times than not, tends to understand the contours of the races he covers better than most. But largely, political coverage of these states is just crap. Also, along with point two, also because a lot of them sit in the Washington/VA suburbs, they took away a LOT from the VA Governors race in 2021 and that helped shape perceptions of elections going forward, and that hasn't worked out at all... a lot of what has transpired since has me questioning whether any of the takeaways from that race, particularly on "wokeness" in schools and whatnot, are based in reality.

Love it...

Another piece of evidence... this is supposedly one of the best vote counters in the business, and he was consistently wrong every step of the way as the returns came in. At the time of his first tweet, it was evident that with the outstanding vote in Dane/MKE/BOW and Kelly's tepid rural performance that the difference would land over 10 points.

Also the case in the Chicago election as well (which I was wrong about personally, although it was close), but one thing that struck me about the Wisconsin Supreme Court race is how, despite all of the prognosticators predicting a close race, there was very little evidence of it. And a lot of those prognostications were backed up on rather specious grounds; things like "will the Donald Trump indictment motivate people to the polls" all while kinda ignoring or papering over the obvious fact that abortion / election denial actually matters a lot to voters, particularly the kinds of voters who show up for off-year elections. We have debated media bias a lot over the years, and it's not false to suggest that, editorially, the NYT and Washington Post isn't a safe space for Republicans. On the other hand, even to the extent that there is bias, GOP operatives do an absolutely amazing job of controlling and setting the narrative of what gets talked about. Not just in those papers but on cable news as well. And the amount of people in the media who sat there and suggested that the DJT Indictment was potentially a game changer is proof.... just completely out of touch. It makes you wonder if all of these entities need to buy some office space or relocate their political writers to Chicago, so they can at least be close enough to the Midwestern swing states to be able to credibly report on it. Because, over six years removed from Donald Trump winning in 2016, they still don't seem to have a good understanding of the region at all.

Amy starting to ask the right questions...

Mentioned in the other thread, but today is the day the Astros get their rings... one imagines they will be fired up

With house money left over... although today will be tough since it's Ring Day for the Astros

Beyond parody... just way beyond parody

Tonight was an even cleaner and better win than last night. And with the insurance runs, which have been hard to come by for the Tigers the past calender year, it made the ending a little less cathartic lol

Wingenter gets the nod, second day in a row

Matty V!

I say it every year, I'm stuck with the Astros broadcast and it is orders of magnitude better than the Tigers TV broadcast

If I have one criticism.... He didn't hit the tracks like Riley did 🤣

This team's outlook looks so much different if those two are teaming up like they did in that inning

He turned around 99 there... that's encouraging!