chasfh

He was a win-positive player in 2022 and could have served as a multi-positional depth piece. He was even average in outfield defense, not below average, by multiple measures, despite the moaning and groaning we did about him early that year. And he was defense-positive at 2B. We could use something like that now.

TBF, just about everyone here was screaming for Willi's head his entire last year here, same as Jeimer's head, so ...

Wrong thread! 😉😂

Please tell me you're not invoking Keider Montero as the future of our rotation in the same breath as Jackson Jobe.

All good points, although but I'm focusing on what happened, not what might have happened if. Just because Gore might have gutted out and won a challenge, but didn't, does not mitigate the abject awfulness of the Supreme Court of the last 25 years. Bush v Gore was the catalyst to make it all happen.

No contender is going to trade a core part of their lineup even fir a Cy Young contender. It would have to be someone close to major league ready who is blocked.

Gleyber Torres or bust!

I’ve been thinking a bit about the Supreme Court of late, and it occurs to me that the Court has done more in the last 25 years to make life for the average person far worse on an everyday basis than any other institution in America, bar none, and it’s not particularly close. Worse than the executive branch, worse than Congress, worse than government bureaucracy, worse than the media, arguably worse than the mammoth corporate class, even worse than religion. The Court is the undisputed champ of the last quarter century of making Americans’ lives miserable, and it’s been their worst quarter century ever, and that’s saying a lot, because they’ve had some doozies in their time like Dred Scott and Plessy and Korematsu and, of course, Marbury. I have five examples to back this up, in reverse chronological order: Dobbs. This was the decision that ended federal protection for choice and sent it back unprotected to the states to do what they wanted with it. They took this right away from individuals and they gave it to the state. They subsumed already-existing individual rights to state power. If that’s not fascism, nothing is. Murphy. A lot of people don’t know this one by name, but this was the ruling that overturned the federal ban on gambling, and opened up a freewheeling gambling mega-industry in which casinos and sportsbooks and online companies spends billions of dollars chasing people around trying to get them to bet bet bet bet. Here’s fifty free dollars for your first bet, guaranteed winner, do it right on your phone 24/7/365, and so on and so on. This ruling is certain to lead to one of the worst health crises in the history of the United States within the next ten years. Citizens United: now corporations and insanely wealthy individuals can give all the money they want to politicians, and can do it in all kinds of clandestine and even anonymous ways where we the people don’t know who they are. But the politicians know, and the politicians end up beholden to those who give them all the money, instead of working on behalf of us the people, and we end up abandoned especially when we need protections from the abuses of the very people who give them the money. Heller. This is the one that removed the well-regulated militia requirement from owning firearms. You don’t have to belong to a militia of any kind anymore, never mind a well-regulated one. Now anyone can be a lone wolf militia of one if they want, and in fact, we have seen a rise in exactly that kind of activity ever since the ruling. And the granddaddy of them all: Bush v Gore, the one without which none of the other four would even exist, because that guy ended up putting John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the court, which led to a hard right turn that ended up screwing Obama out of his rightful pick and giving Trump the opportunity to put three more hard right-wingers. Without Bush V Gore, we almost certainly don’t get Heller, Citizens United, Murphy, or Dobbs. And now they are angling for a sixth ruling to add to that list at whatever point they can figure out a way to give Trump unlimited immunity as president while not giving anywhere close to the same immunity to anyone else. And this doesn't even contemplate the dozens of smaller rulings, like those that came down today listed on this very page, that erode out country slowly but surely, like a frog slowly boiling in a pot of water. The Supreme Court is the most powerful, least accountable, most corrupt institution in this country, and the problem is, I have no idea how they could be stopped, short of impeachment and removal, which, according to Dershowitz, even if successfully voted upon, could probably be overturned by that very same court! tl;dr: The Supreme Court is now a monster. Full stop.

Cannon’s just doing what she was hired to do.

I don’t know about that—I think there are people who would sit out on voting for Trump but would come out to vote for Vance, assuming the exact same positions, because of the way Trump acts out and makes the whole party look like a clown show. I’m talking about people who want their fascism wrapped up in a nicely presentable package. Vance can do that.

Going nutjob is Trump playing to his base. But if it's his odious policies you're talking about—militarizing the border, abortion restrictions, trading taxes for tariffs, all that—that's not just for red hats. The center-right might hate it when Trump opens his mouth, but they definitely like what he wants to do on policy. I'm thinking double-digit percent of voters would vote for Trump's policies in more of a J.D. Vance package. As a man who has a base of celebrity and who can breathe fire when it's convenient, Vance is actually the guy I worry about most post-Trump.

If she don't hawk tuah, don't wanna talk tuhuh

Kids: stay in school.

I had thought Trump would find a way to pull out, but now that it appears the debate is going to happen after all, the thing I’m most concerned about is that Trump comes off looking reasonable and Biden’s game plan is all about Trump being a madman. People in the middle want desperately to vote for a reasonable Republican, so if Trump has a quiet debate with little or no acting out, he might make serious in-roads into the middle without losing a single red hat. Of course, then he has four-plus month to maintain that veneer of reasonableness with the middle, so …

I didn’t see it, but the way I heard it described was, Perez was in the box and ready at ten seconds, Turnbull was diddling around, Perez than took a step back and looked down at eight seconds, then the call was made. The way the batter portion of the time rule is written is, “Batters must be in the box and alert to the pitcher by the 8-second mark or else be charged with an automatic strike.” Perez was ready at ten seconds, so he was ready BY eight seconds, which is the letter of the rule. But he had stepped back and was apparently not ready AT eight seconds, so he got popped for it. So it seems that even by the letter of the rule, Perez was in the clear. But even by the spirit of the rule, Perez was fine, and the umpire called it wrong. I think they should either change the wording to “at”, or else re-evaluate how that part of the rule is applied in the real world. The latter would be technically better, although the former would probably be easier.

Singing? Generous assessment …

If we were to trade Skubal this deadline, the Tigers might as well run ads telling people to stay home for the next couple of years, because there will be nothing to see and dream on. And make that double if we were to make the choice to trade Skubal and sign Flaherty for a single year, as someone suggested, instead of trading Flaherty and keeping Skubal for 2-1/2 years. Skubal is the one great player on the team and we have him locked up until at least mid-2026. Barring injury, there’s no way he’s not breaking camp with us next March.

We already tried the one championship team strategy. Didn’t work. Might as well try something different.

Choosing a first baseman at the top of the draft would have everything to do with Tork. Do that and we might as well put him in the bargain bin right afterwards.

Like I say, Wenceel is Mr. Right Now, so he’s in no danger of the GM yanking the rope away. But I am not penciling him in on the 2027 division winners, not even as a fourth outfielder.

Translation: The Supreme Court is open for business!

1) I think Harris has already made a few good trades. Unless you mean scrubs-for-All Stars trades? 2) Controlling the zone is all about getting yourself in a position to get good pitches by not swinging at bad pitches. I think every hitter can benefit from that. 3) I think Harris wants “his” guys because the other guy’s guys mostly suck. I don’t think it’s because Harris “has an ego”. I think it’s because he wants to build a winner.

I might be the only one here who thinks Wenceel is just passing through, versus being a cog on the next playoff team. His offensive numbers have a little BABIP helium in them, and he has no position to play here with a glove like his. Beyond this, his Savant card is awash in blue. I just don’t think he has much of a chance to be more than Mr. Right Now.

I absolutely did, and I’m thrilled the TV broadcast is no longer an echo chamber of conventional baseball thinking.

It is.