mtutiger

Somebody inform Mr. Walker that he can download the PlutoTV app on his Smart TV and watch all the episodes his heart desires.

Wat

It definitely could be an environment thing for him.... iirc there were a couple of stretches during 2022 where he was just held out of games for multiple games at a time. Maybe mentally was in the wrong place?

Harris will need to do something to replace Candelario, it would be a failure if absolutely nothing happened. But as far as I'm concerned, the book is closed on Candelario... what he does or doesn't do in someone else's uniform isn't gonna change the fact that the Tigers should not have just tendered him a contract for $7mil because of the risk of getting little or nothing to replace. And if Candelario wasn't gonna accept a lower number from the Tigers (as it was reported the Tigers were seeking), they didn't have much choice but to let him go. That's just never gonna be a failure or a mistake imo.... in a negotiation, you have to be willing to walk away from the table, and that's what he did. I can't fault him for that.

Got it. I'm not of the belief he's necessarily done as well.

Apparently the fact that the White House Press Corps didn't get to attend Naomi Biden's wedding is a scandal?

I understand that he had a couple of good years before 2022, but it stands to reason that players who have an awful performance in a contract or arbitration year are likely going to take a hit on their expected value. I don't think Candy is unique in that regard.

Draftees and young stars aside, looking strictly at free agency, are teams generally in the business of valuing future projections over past performance when negotiating? If one takes into account past performance, the Tigers were 100% right on principle to attempt to negotiate to a lower number. And it stands to reason that if you're going to negotiate, you have to be willing to walk away, which they did. Others mileage may vary, but I think the new administration handled it well and, if anything, it adds to my confidence in their abilities.

This. Keeping Candy while overpaying him is bad on a few levels.... it signals a lack of interest in taking calculated risks and falling back on the safe option. But I would argue as well that settling on Candy for more than he is worth paying based on his past performance sets a bad precedent for future negotiations in free agency with other players as well. Regarding the bolded, this is 1000% spot on. We have been conditioned from watching years of Al Avila to expect the safe move.... well, we are done with that now. Does it guarantee success? No, certainly in the short term there may be pain (arguably there would be pain regardless).... but always falling back on the safe move and being unwilling to take calculated risks isn't gonna work either.... we've seen how that plays out.

I think this is right. We can look at this past Congress as an example of how difficult it is to manage such a small majority - they managed to get a lot done, but it was incredibly challenging and, frankly, that was with a much better and more politically adept speaker than McCarthy will likely be in Pelosi. A big part of this as well is the fact that two factions in the GOP have much different electoral concerns, not unlike this past Congress as well on the D side. It's easy to be MTG in a safe seat, lobbing grenades and stirring a pot, it's a lot harder and more difficult to be Don Bacon having to win in Omaha or one of the new NY Congressmen having to defend heavy Biden districts in a couple of years. Just altogether different pressure points / motivations.

As with a lot of things that Kevin is talking about these days, it all comes down to getting the requisite votes - they can only lose 4.

This is a story to watch.... all the attention is on the Freedom Caucus / MTG side, but these guys have leverage too.

Buffalo is a big test... if they were to somehow beat them, though, they do have room for a soft landing with the stretch of games after it. At 4-6 though, it's hard to see them threading that needle... it's theoretically possible, but there isn't much margin for error.

No question... overall 4-6 seems like a fair appraisal with where they are at

You can add the Dallas game to the mix as well. If they score instead of fumbling at the 1...

lol, they pulled away from the game here in the dfw market... Can't remember seeing that in a game where the Lions were leading lol

It felt inevitable that someone would expose the Giants, didn't expect the Lions to be the team to do it lol

He's not even from Maricopa County lol

Clock stopped when he was down to move the chains, it was the right call

Another clear sign that Russia isn't actually losing this war /s

1000%. Candy is more of a 50/50 proposition and time will tell, but the definition of insanity is running the Castros out there over and over again and expecting different results. They may not be good next year, but it's not gonna be because of any moves they made yesterday. Time to move on and see if there are better options.

I doubt there is any discussion about this, particularly with his hitting struggles and need to improve in that category, but man it would be nice if Torkelson could be slotted in at third base. Feels like that could open more possibilities, even if the options at 1B aren't too much better than 3B. But not gonna happen and probably shouldnt.

I don't love tendering Cisnero, but if there is any team that should value depth in terms of pitching, it's this one. Especially with all the injuries last year. Would have been better to take a flyer on one of the other non-tenders though imo

I wouldnt call the cuts yesterday obvious, fwiw. At least on here given the back and forth discussion about whether it was better to keep Candy or not. What I do think we can conclude so far is that the new guy isn't gonna just fall back on doing the safe thing... it would have been easy and safe (and frankly, the Avila move) to bring back Candy and at least one of the Castros rather than risk having to fill in their spots with someone else. Our expectations as fans should evolve accordingly.