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I don't think that's true defensively. He was at least a slightly plus defender at more than one position. But he did obviously have the potential to be unlocked offensively, and the Twins figured that out, mostly by getting him to be patient at the plate. I know people hate everything about the Tigers' hitting coaches here, but they do practice patience at the plate, so I think Willi could have done that here, too. And of course, with the bigger bases, the Twins let Willi loose and now he's a 20-30 steals guy.

I didn't imagine Willi being an All-Star, but I defended keeping him before he was let go last year. I'm thinking there was something more than just his evaluated potential or even his numbers at play in the decision. Same with Jeimer.

I know I thought Trump would pull out of the debate claiming natural bias againt him, but now I'm thinking they both have to go through with it, Biden to redeem himself, and Trump to retain his honor in front of his honor-fetishizing constituency.

That’s fine, let them, and I hope it gets traction this time. But I would be frankly surprised if it did, because if it didn’t years ago when it first came out, why would it now? There would have to be some newly-reported wrinkle to freshen it up, and I’m not sure the “boys” angle is enough. It all looks like a fantastic lie, meaning the right may well claim it proves there are underlying fantasies Democrats are projecting, since the pedophilia thing might be sticking to them with more people than it is with Republicans.

I had no idea J.D. Vance was even gay. 😝 Seriously, I believe Trump fears J.D. Vance will upstage him. And personally, I fear J.D. Vance right now more than anyone else outside Trump. He’s famous, he’s young, he’s articulate, he’s into the fascism, and I bet mainline Republicans are just itching to vote for exactly that kind of guy.

That’s it, I’m not voting for you anymore. 😉

I’ve been giving more thought to the whole “it has to be Kamala Harris” thing. If Joe were to simply coronate Kamala, wouldn’t there be a huge uproar in the party and create actual factions over it, at least behind the scenes at first? I mean, yeah, black woman, yada yada, I get that. But there are a few other people in the party who would like the nomination themselves and they have vocal supporters, too. The party would go into flip flops over it. Just one more reason Joe has to stay in the race. Get him over the finish line in November, then figure out when Joe steps down if at all. Because remember, we’re not voting for just the candidate—we’re voting for all the people they bring in, too. And those people have to be there behind Kamala if/when she takes over.

I am also not surprised that AOC and Omar are aboard. They have some far left positions but they have displayed some realpolitik as well the last few years. I would be more surprised if Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib voice their support. I fully expect Tlaib to stay on the outside.

I am not at all surprised. Elizabeth Warren has always been a team player. Plus, I was the guy who started the Elizabeth Warren for President thread back in 2011 or so, so I’m a fan.

This came out years ago and it’s been buried since then. I don’t see anything about it outside of here and some random tweets I see, e.g., Rick Wilson. Besides, a distressingly high percentage of his constituency digs the idea of child brides.

I'm not 100% certain on how to read this, but here goes—this is from Isaac Paredes's Savant page: The way it looks to me, from all the balls Isaac Paredes has put into play since the beginning of 2022, he has hit 65 actual home runs since he went to Tampa. If he hit all those same in-play balls in the exact same way—same launch angle, same exit velocity, same direction, adjusted for time of day and atmospheric conditions, I suppose—all in the Tampa ballpark, he would have gotten 70 home runs out of them. But had he hit those same fly balls at Comerica, it would have resulted in 55 home runs. I don't think this means Paredes has lost 15 home runs he would have gotten had he stayed in Detroit, but it might be fair to say that the long fly balls he did hit were -21% less likely to go out at Comerica than they would at the Trop. So, generally speaking, we can assume that he's gained several home runs more since going to Tampa than had he stayed here. Although, do we really believe these numbers on their face? I mean, look at Baltimore, for cry eye! He would have had only 26 home runs on those same balls? Do you buy that? That seems like a hard sell to me, but I'm willing to listen to anyone who can tell me why that makes sense. One thing that tells me is that a lot of his home runs are wall scrapers, which makes sense, because get a load of how much blue there is in his hard hit metrics. I had no idea. So weird.

This is what I'm saying: Avila blocked him here. Paredes was never going to get his chance, so, as long as we're going to deal him anyway, might as well get a middle-of-the-order thumper for him. It was a big swing by Avila that I thought was at least defensible, and I acknowledged that at the time—although I also said that I was not looking forward to watching Paredes fashion an All-Star career in someone else's threads.

"That man had charisma!"

Is that what we're calling Baby Doc these days? 😉

I'm generally not a man given to nostalgia, but ... I do miss the 90s.

Just goes to show you: ain't no silver bullet—at least outside of OOTP. 😁

That reminds me: when is Scott Harris finally going to start spending money and getting free agents to play here??

OK.

I don't know, a 2-win player with a late career might be worth keeping around, unless he's going to be definitely squeezed out by call-ups? Same with Vierling—why trade him for lower minors lottery tickets when he could be a positive force on the field this year and next? I guess one complicating factor is that they are both arb eligible for the first time next year. I could definitely be wrong here, but I don't see us taking a bag of balls for either or both of them just to save a couple million on payroll and nothing else next year.

What's the trade you want to see Harris make today? The only condition is that it has to have a reasonable chance of happening.

Just about everyone here liked the move a lot. I was the only one openly questioning it, and even I said back then that I liked the chutzpah of dealing from the top of the system for (what we thought was) an established middle-of-the-order hitter, and I knew Paredes was never going to make Avila's team anyway. I bet Tampa knew at least something about Meadows' mental health issues going in.

Hockey is a growth market in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Giving them free games is good business. Baseball is a mature-to-declining market in Michigan. It makes less sense to give it away for free.

I think it bears keeping in mind that when it comes to organization, the weakness of the Democratic Party is its diversity. It is essentially a coalition of many different factions with many differing agendas. It's really hard to pull everyone together, even in the best of circumstances, if each group is not getting their bed feathered and preventing their ox being gored. That is one way in which the Republican Party has an advantage: they are monolithic in demography and ideology, so they are all on board, 100%. What that means is if/when someone in the Republican Party flips on Trump, that's huge and surprising news, because of the monolithism. But when Democrats flip on Biden, It's news, but not so surprising, because of the different factions with differing goals that run counter to those of Biden and mainline Democrats. IOW, I think that when a lot of those Democrats call for Biden to step down, they are hoping for someone to replace him who will feather their beds better, and keep their oxen from being gored more effectively.

Disagree. She would have been the leader of the female accusers.

Once October comes around, and people really start paying attention because they have to make choices now, the Republicans are going to be in a huge bind. They are not going to win a free and fair election. Only the Supreme Court can help them win.