mtutiger

Injured and out for the year, unfortunately

They brought back Norris to start... Greene isn't a starter

This may be a deke or a ploy to get Dems to spend more in Dem leaning races, but overall it's a piece of evidence that the Rs are pretty concerned that Oz and Walker could mess things up in GA and PA

We complain about Democratic unity a lot, but sometimes it isn't reflective of what actually happens in primaries... the expectation has been more internecine fighting with the Ds, but that largely hasn't played out.

Polling does matter this early on insofar that it guides the parties in terms of how they choose to spend campaign money. Pennsylvania is a great example... Josh Shapiro has a 10-1 cash advantage in the Govs race versus Mastriano. Thus far, the RGA (Republican Governor's Association) hasn't invested much, if at all, into the race. They probably have internal polls that are more accurate, but while the fact that they aren't weighing in has some to do with Mastriano being a morally awful candidate, some of it probably does reflect that he is doing poorly in H2H matchups as well. And the money thing matters... cash can have diminishing returns to a point, but a 10-1 cash advantage is hard to work at this early point when you are a relative unknown in a statewide race, it allows your opponent to define you. Oz, despite being a more well known figure, is in a similar boat as well... and both of them are at risk of not being able to recover from being defined early.

Fair point!

What would be good value for Andujar straight up? Plugging it into the website, Grossman or Pineda would bring more parity to the deal, although the Yankees need neither lol

Probably have to consider the eras more generally that both came up in as well.... when comparing Konerko and Tork, you are comparing against eras as well, given the 1990s were a different time in terms of quality of pitching. Doing a quick comparison of MLB between 1997 and 2021, there's a good 28 point difference or so in OPS between the two years (.756 vs. .728). Comparing against 2022, it's even worse (.756 vs. .708). Comparing the two statistically provide a good baseline to look at them, no doubt, but I don't know how much Tork's minor league numbers against Konerko means in terms of assessing whether he can reach that level as a player.

Overall, I agree with the idea that we would all be happy if Tork had a similar career to Paulie. They have very similar profiles with some subtle differences. Just not sure I agree with making judgments about whether Tork can reach that ceiling or not because he has slightly lower career OPS than Paulie did with 1300 less ABs in the minor leagues.

His OPS over his first 600 or so appearances was actually lower than Torkelson's. Admittedly he was at lower levels and younger, but again, it just isn't really a great comparison at all.

Tork being a college player factors in, but the disparity in ABs (1900 versus 555) is pretty significant and doesn't make it a great 1 on 1 comparison regardless.

Paulie also had about 4x the amount of minor league ABs than Tork tho.

According to the website (which I'm sure is super realistic, wink wink), they would be better off trading Fulmer and a prospect for Estevan Florial lol

I wouldn't think so, but I could be wrong. I do think he'd be worth it though if they could get him for a reliever chip EDIT: Maybe he is, at least according to Trade Simulator

I don't believe he's gettable for one of the Tigers reliever pieces, but still think he makes some sense to look at.

His Cape numbers are significantly better than his numbers at college, so it makes sense to give it another go at college one would think.

https://theathletic.com/3459109/2022/07/29/tarik-skubal-tigers-trade-rumors/?source=emp_shared_article

The guy advocating for Skubal to be traded and who appears to have invented the "AJ Opt-Out" myth appears excited by Daniel Norris being back for some reason.... Hate to pick on the guy, but he's losing it.

In general, one can believe Al Avila has been a terrible GM while acknowledging a few of the deals that overall have worked out for the better (ie. Candy/Paredes for Avila/Wilson, Olson for Norris) or acknowledging the logic behind some deals that haven't worked out up until this point (Meadows for Paredes/Draft Pick). Al's big mistakes were years in the making, particularly with getting little for JD or JV and waiting until last August to actually do a major revamp/reorganization of player development. And he should pay the price for those mistakes and for the lack of results that have resulted from them.

Objectively, one would have to be thrilled if Tork turned out to be similar to Paul Konerko

I would add as well that, again, some of the revisionist history on this deal makes Paredes more of the centerpiece of the deal than he likely was when the Rays made it.... the talk at the time of the deal was that it had more to do with the cost of Austin Meadows going forward and needing to make room for Josh Lowe in the lineup (who has overall been poor in his short career, but that's neither here nor there). It's likely more of a situation where the Tigers and Rays hooked up because of this and the Rays picked out a player they thought could complement them or that they liked out of the system. To their credit, it has worked so far.... but as much as we may all dislike Al Avila, I don't think they were conniving behind the scenes trying to pry Paredes from our grasp or anything like that.

It's also the case that a few unforeseen things needed to happen for Paredes to get as much time as he has in Tampa's lineup as well. After all, he started the year in Durham. And he's largely remained in their lineup because, overall, it's not one of the best among contenders (especially after Wander Franco's injury) and for a 45 game stretch or so, he was one of the best parts of it. It remains to be seen whether water is currently finding its level with Paredes or if his latest struggles are just a blip and he can mirror what he did during that stretch going forward. But the reality is that the deal looked good on paper at the time and, if Meadows were healthy and producing at the track record he's established, the trade would basically look like a wash at this point. As always, we need to wait and see what the next years bring in terms of determining how bad this deal is. To the extent that I worry about the return on the deal, given the weak state of the Tigers farm with respect to position players, I do kinda think that losing the draft pick may have even been worse than losing Paredes.

Bryan Garcia vs. Alex Manoah. Maybe the most lopsided pitching matchup of the year? Or at least since Elvin Rodriguez and Gerrit Cole at Yankee Stadium?

With the usual caveats about outliers and that this may be one, the vote share, with Shapiro at 50% and Fett at 47% in particular, has to be concerning for the Republican candidates. Because that means, at least at this juncture, simple consolidation of the GOP vote isn't enough, persuasion of a few of those currently leaning Shapiro/Fett will be necessary. And neither GOP candidate (Mastriano or Oz) seem well suited to that. Oz in particular has massive Name ID and is polarizing. That is what separates this poll in my mind from some of the others. The margin that the candidates are drawing, and being close to 50%, is important

The slide from Kerry Carpenter is 👌