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Yes, and the way Baseball has turned toward marketing individual stars over teams, or over the game writ large. Exhibit A for years was how Baseball tried to strip as many vestiges of which team a player played for as they could during the All-Star Game. Fortunately, focus groups or something threw water on that idea. Even with this walking back, the more I look at Savant, the harder it is for me to tell which teams the players I see listed in tables play for.

Fortunately, small market teams that sneak into the back door of the playoffs have a chance to win rings because of the way players and pitchers can slump, or the way the ball bounces, at inopportune times for everyone, including big spenders.

He’s referring to Szymborski’s ZIPs, not the Steamer.

I would have been all over this idea maybe four years ago, but not so much now. Baby Doc has been a great owner since Scott Harris came on board, at least when it comes to the baseball product*. He has shown he will spend when he has been convinced the time is right, and he has spent millions to fix the infrastructure and personnel issues of player scouting and development. Plus, we don’t get to choose who the next owner would be. For all we know, if Ilitch Enterprises does divest, we will end up with the next John Fisher or Bruce Sherman or Bob Nutting, and then we’d be stuck with that terribleness for the rest of my life at least, and probably yours. I want Baby Doc to prove for sure that he won’t invest in the team even when the Max Clark class of prospects matures and makes the majors, and we’re a big player or pitcher away from becoming perennial pennant contenders; or else he proves he will dump top players like Skubal or Riley early to avoid their walk years just to save money and churn prospects; or else he liquidates top prospects for rentals of middling or over-the-hill free agents in misguided attempts to win. Then I will root for a sale. * - They do maintain a relatively ****ty fan experience at the stadium—I mean, no outside bags? No food? No water? What is this, a Red Wings game?

Speaking as a fan, I don’t care about the money. That’s someone else’s problem. I care only about the years. I don’t want to commit too many years to someone on the precipice of a decline phase. I understand that albatross contracts can hamper a team’s ability to make moves in the future, but in a case like this, where a guy is on the final contract of his career anyway, I’d be more concerned if the AAV difference is $15MM versus $35MM than I would if the difference is #15MM vs $20MM. In any event, Walker is gone now, so, so much for this case.

I saw Lorenzen pitch and play center when he visited with the Reds a few years ago. I was totally in the moment on it and thought it was really cool.

I think we could get him for three years, so I would be comfortable with that.

Personally, I wish we could sign Christian Walker, but I understand not wanting to pay draft capital to do so.

Aaaaaand they killed the segment. They say there's a breaking development in the Mangione story, as if it hasn't been breaking constantly for weeks now! And this after they drove me all the way downtown and everything! Ahhh well ... serves me right for letting you know before it happens than after. They say they will try to get it on tomorrow, but who knows what the chances of that will be.

I acknowledge people tend to take words at 100% face value and believe that nothing more could be underneath them, but speaking only from my perspective, I do believe if Tork were hitting his benchmarks, Harris would have struck a note that was more positive, if for no other reason than to encourage Tork to keeping at it (and/or to frame his trade value more advantageously).

Since Trump looks up to those who are wealthier than he, it’s a good bet Musk will get free rein to set whatever policy he likes.

This is what I was alluding to in the other thread yesterday. A lot of people who call themselves “Christian” lately are doing so as a virtue signal of their cultural beliefs, rather than as a reflection of their spiritual beliefs.

We can’t account for what’s going on in your head, but that’s not what’s going on out here in the world.

Hypocrite or not, I can hardly blame Biden for not unilaterally disarming while people who explicitly refer to him as the enemy trample over all the norms they criticize him for ignoring.

I wasn’t telling anyone how to do anything. I was just commenting on what can be obviously seen.

I’m coming round to wondering whether that the only thing that could stop the abject dismantling and destruction of the government would be court cases that tie up everything they want to accomplish. I’m not sure how that would work out because Trump’s appointees can probably just throw out cases without comment, or else the administration would just refuse to follow rulings and then dare anyone to do anything to stop them. I guess we’ll see …

Don’t much know either way, but it did strike me when Harris was quoted at the Winter Meetings as basically laying down the gauntlet when he said, basically, the performance has to get better and it’s not just offensive performance, it’s defensive performance, too. That reads to me as though they checked in with Tork before the winter meetings and were not satisfied by what they saw. I think if he were hitting all their check boxes along the way, they would have said something more like, Tork is making some improvements, there’s a long way to go, but we like what we see. Something more like that. Unless he did say that and I missed it, but I don’t believe so. But what was reported comes off as a public calling out. To me, this is the most interesting storyline of the winter. I’l be interested to see whether any more is said and, just as importantly, how it’s said.

Now that I’m looking at her face for what might be the first time ever, she looks not unlike Victoria Jackson.

You tell me …

I wanted to understand what kind of deal you thought would be reasonable. I wasn't doing any kind of gotcha here—although that does go on here a lot, so I can see why you demur.

See, now that's the thing that's gonna make you wanna watch, right? Media meltdown live and nationwide? 😉

This is not political, really, but, in what certainly must be one of the more unusual twists in MTF history, I am booked to go live on Fox News Channel tomorrow morning at about 10:50 AM Eastern, 9:50 AM Central. I will be appearing on some show called America's Newsroom, during which I am going to be interviewed about the overdue library book story by Dana Perino, who was George Bush Junior's White House press secretary.

What's an example of a reasonable deal you think they are being presented with, that they should jumped on? Or, if not exactly being presented with, what would be a good example of a reasonable deal they should do, in your view?

It’s the time of the season to declare that “Trading Places” is far superior as a Christmas movie to “Die Hard”.

That’s because “Christian” doesn’t really reflect piety, charity, or even religiosity anymore, at least not in today’s America. It’s a virtue signal for a selfish, ruthless, fascist political movement.