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The research I have seen on this is from 20 or so years ago, before hurlers started trying to throw the ball through the wall on every pitch. I wonder what new research based on today’s conditions and incentives would yield? To your point, if it’s all about the physiology, there should not be any difference.

If Baseball were serious about protecting pitchers, they would deaden the ball to significantly reduce homers, which would reduce the need (or incentive, if you prefer) to try to throw every pitch with maximum effort and movement in order to miss the bats of all nine guys in the order who can take them out of the park. There’s no incentive for Baseball to do that, though, because the home run is their #1 marketing tool, and there is practically an endless supply of fungible pitchers they can run out there.

I’ve been thinking more lately that there must be a market inefficiency in terms of multi-inning relievers, guys who can work out of the front of the bullpen for 2-3 innings at a time and not necessarily be a contender for a starting role. So, if a pitcher has to come out in the third or fourth inning, a team could slot in a guy (or even two) to get them to the end of the game and save the back of the pen, versus having to cycle six one-inning guys, including their closer and #1 setup, to get them to the end of the game because that’s all they have available.

The trick is getting six pitchers good enough to put into a regular rotation. I have never been a big fan of this idea because you end up taking starts from your best starters and scheduling them for your sixth best guy maybe 25-ish times a year. That’s not an effective use of resources, as far as I can tell. I would rather have a five-man schedule and cobble together the fifth spot between your number 5/6 guys. If a team does have six guys who are good and healthy enough for a regular turn—a super rare instance, I would think—then they should probably move one of those 5/6 guys to fill another position of clear need, if they have one.

Given how deliberate Harris is showing himself to be, I am having trouble seeing him throw everything away and making a crazy signing, like 7/200 would be for a Snell or a Bellinger. And I don’t believe Baby Doc is as given to that kind of New York minute that Papa Doc was. If there’s a concern to be had along these lines, I’d think it would be more that the caution would prevent them from making the right big money move for the right guy before someone else snaps him up.

Don’t Massholes go for Trump? Or am I thinking of something different here?

I might stipulate that $14 million is not all that significant a hit to a team’s payroll anymore in terms of opportunity cost, especially given the hike up in contracts this year. I mean, 3/26 for Joe Jimenez? Now that’s a risk, and less because of the $26 million. The Tigers are going to have a payroll in the bottom third of baseball next season, and that’s even with Flaherty on board, so I see it as actually being a low-risk signing. His contract is clearly not hamstringing us from spending more, and if he doesn’t work out, we don’t have to worry about him having any impact on the 2025 payroll.

I rewatched Ken Burns’s doc on Huey Long, from 1986. First time I’ve seen it since then. It didn’t stick much with me when I first saw it, but rewatching it, I am struck, almost stunned, by the parallels between Long and Trump, if not exactly in style, then certainly in tactics and effect. They also talk about what happened after Long died, and it’s at turns frightening and heartening. You can watch it free for here if you’re interested. EDIT: Very weird: the video showed up when I pasted in the link, then disappeared as I posted it. Here is the URL: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8mzfmn

Speaking of Jack Flaherty, I believe it was someone here who posted that it was high risk-high reward. But it’s only a one-year deal, which is basically the opposite of high risk. The Tigers may have tried to add a second year but Flaherty rejected it to bet on himself. Or perhaps Flaherty asked for additional years with an opt-out and the Tigers said no. Either way, it’s only a single year, so I don’t see the risk.

Not to get more political than this here, but I don’t think local newspapers feel that’s their purview anymore, and the papers that do feel that purview tend to be more national now.

I get why they wanna run up the score. They’ve really been struggling the last six weeks, and they need a no-doubt blowout to get back on that horse.

I just renewed the Athletic at $9.99 for the year simply by threatening to dump them when my prior year was up. I get the Free Press and News for $1.00 per month, although that’s gonna expire pretty soon.

In most contexts ... 😏

The bigger issue for Manning might be the specter of a missile approaching them from 60 feet and arriving at him in about a third of a second. Yes, I realize every pitcher faces the same possibility, but Manning has actually been hit twice, and a guy like that could reasonably develop the yips when it comes to delivering the pitch.

It's even funnier hearing these yahoos on Washington Journal calling in and regaling Greta with "mounds of evidence", like, I don't know, Communist China got a call from an irate Joe Biden and they sent Hunter a check for $5 million. That's probably not exactly it, but they are things along those lines. Unsubstantiated claims and innuendo, or, at best, misrepresentation of above-board business transactions. And yet, when you ask what specific crime any of the Bidens are supposed to have committed, these people look at you incredulously and say, come on, it's all over the place, just look it up online. I say, no, it's your claim, it's your responsibility to back it up. The next word out of their mouth is generally four letters in length.

I’m really going to be interested in seeing how Manning responds this year after taking liners off his foot on two separate occasions last year. I wonder whether he’s having nightmares about comeback liners.

Chafin as much as admitted he made a big mistake opting out of his second year last season. That’s OK, though, I think he and his family will be fine.

Makes sense. They’ve gotten screwed by the new draft lottery—especially this year—their system is among the worst in Baseball, and coming off a 106-loss season, they needed to do something to maintain relevance in that market.

Matt Chapman is still out there … 😁

Who would you like to get?

This really is the year TORK! has to take a decent step forward, meaning 120 or better wRC+ for the whole year. I know he’s only 24, but come one, 1/1 …

He’s not wrong, though.

It’s about time they started focusing on asking what the exact crime Biden was supposed to have committed. Not that it matters, though, since this entire operation runs along that exact same lines as, “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen”.