chasfh

Oh yeah, they’re real, and they’re spectacular!

GUILTY! THE MOTHER****ER IS GUILTY ON ALL 34 COUNTS!

Judge Jeanine: “I have a big concern about the judge not allowing the defense to plead the case they needed to to properly defend their client.”

“Many times juries learn after they render a verdict and leave the courthouse that there was information that was not made available to them and they have buyer’s remorse for the verdict … it’s as though they were instructed by Michael Cohen or Barry Pecker …”

“The jury instructions were pro-prosecution.”

Also likening the corroboration of volumes of documents to Michael Cohen’s testimony as “smoke and mirrors”.

Fox lamenting that any guilty verdict will be based on the testimony of the GLOAT.

Fox correspondent hoping against hope it’s an impasse and not a verdict.

I’m going to watch it on Fox. Either way, their reaction will be the most fascinating.

That was in 2023, but he was also 0.4 WAR with a 93 OPS+ in 2022. If we sign him, which guy is gonna show up for us? Plus he’s 36, and I’m pretty sure if we sign him Tiger fans would have a hairy conniption because 36-year-old first basemen have no future. I’m not opposed out of hand to signing him, but I’m pretty sure he is not anywhere close to the Tigers radar. The team is committed to making sure they can get any blood out of the Torknip, and I don’t think the inflection point is either now, or anytime during this season. If he ends up with -2.0 WAR and a 70-ish OPS+, though, I would bet the Tork Question is going to be #1 on the charts with a bullet.

Dodged a bullet on this one ... The Angels announced they’ve transferred reliever José Cisnero from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list. They needed to open a roster spot for infielder Michael Stefanic, who is back from his own 60-day IL stint. The Halos reinstated him onto the 40-man and optioned him to Triple-A Salt Lake.

I wish they did, and that their embrace of gambling hurt them in any way. But all it's doing is bringing people to the game who weren't paying attention to it before, and that's good for their bottom line. After all, you and I are in something like the 98th-percentile of fandom, as well as on the far end of the hate spectrum of gambling in baseball, and it's not as though either of us are boycotting the game in protest of it.

For a reason. 😏

To be clear, I'm not saying anything like, this has always been a conspiracy by Baseball to "Disneyfy" itself by exonerating all its bad actors. But Leerhsen did drop an opportunity in Baseball's lap to draw people's attention away from Cobb's violent behavior by casting doubt on it, which Baseball does benefit from. Because when people become confused about someone's issue—was Cobb a violent racist like I've heard all these years, or was that all a big lie?—they compensate by putting the issue out of their mind and focusing on the things about the people they do know, and bonus, can like and celebrate. Cobb is a core part of baseball history, but Baseball can't market the #1 takeaway fans have about Cobb, so once people stop thinking about that part of him, Baseball can then can comfortably market Cobb as one of the all-time greats of baseball history who fans can love without having to feel icky about it. It's not anything like a conspiracy, or even a plan, concocted by Baseball. I don't think it's even something that's in the back of their minds at any given moment. I think it's a case of, if the opportunity happens to present itself, they could take advantage of it if/when the moment is right. FWIW, I think Baseball would love to be able to so that with Pete Rose, too, since so much of Pete Rose on the field was so easy to enjoy and would make for great highlights, especially since they have so much video of the guy. But he's a harder case because his sin was against the game of baseball itself, and it was Baseball that made him permanently ineligible, so if they tried to celebrate Pete in any way, they'd have some 'splainin' to do.

This administration don't want a permanent DH, at least not in the foreseeable future, and besides, most teams don't even use permanent DHs, anyway. Almost half of all teams, 14 of 30, give fewer than 50% of their DH plate appearances to one guy, and only eight teams give more than two-thirds of their DH PAs to one guy. So I don't sentencing Tork to a year in Toledo and then making him permanent DH indefinitely is in anyone's plans. The teams that benefit most from permanent DHs are those that have strong offense at hitting positions, mainly corners, like the Braves (Ozuna), Dodgers (Ohtani), Phillies (Schwarber), Yankees (Stanton), and Astros (Alvarez). Absent that, permanent DHs tend to play on teams with big-contract and/or legacy guys who can't play anywhere else, like Mitch Garver of the Mariners, or Andrew McCutchen of the Pirates—or Miggy for the Tigers for the last several years.

Technically, for this data to become legal and actionable, users have to consent to their data being used in this way. Practically, the consent can be buried in a 100-page end user agreement that users will literally never read a word of.

As long as Alito can figure out a way to frame it as Trump and only Trump, and anyone else Trump appoints to succeed him.

It is part of the Divine Plan that we pray to God to change his Divine Plan.

Just posting in the spirit of the thread …

Maybe we can move on from him when we find someone decent to replace him. And it doesn’t even have to be a stud with the stick—it could be a halfway-decent hitter with a plus-glove. But I’m pretty sure the last thing we will want to do DFA him out of frustration and get nothing in return, or exile him to Toledo and signal to the market that he’s damaged goods. If we want to get a return for him annd eventually end up with something better, we have little choice at this moment but to keep playing him and hope he figures it out at least a little.

I still have them winning 84.

That’s exactly what Harris always said the plan is: lay down a solid base via the system, continue to build from within over time via the draft and UDFAs, fill in the active roster with trades and free agents and the 40-man with waiver claims and MiLFAs, and don’t fall in love long-term with flawed players based on a good year or two. As for Tork, the tricky part with him is the tantalizing talent we don’t want to go get unlocked somewhere else, especially with the division or league. The talent is there, and the team that unlocks it is going to benefit from it for a while. But probably the best outcome for us here is that he goes on a really good run, and we flip him for a solid starter or major league-ready prospect to someone not exactly looking under the hood. That one would be a tall order, though.

FWIW Tigers are now 4-2 in the six games Javy got a walk.

Objection, badgering the witness. 😉