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So, Melton is not Skubal Redux yet?

lol

Which is why I asked him to imagine. And yes, I do use ****ty phrases, don't I

Imagine you have 20+ years remaining in your dream career and you have a golden opportunity to blow the whistle, in a very public and news-making manner, on a criminal conspiracy in the department you work in. It is a conspiracy that made your company billions and with which you could be reasonably associated by innuendo. The likely end result of your quitting and blowing the whistle is that your career in that and related industries is effectively terminated, with you yourself potentially facing sanctions for that. The alternative is ride it out, hope that it comes to light through other means, you get cleared in the investigation, and you get to continue your career—although, also, it may never get exposed as long as you're there, and you may end your career with no one the wiser and your cushy retirement assured.

I posted Dirks because he is connected to this year's team.

Implementing this is not unlike the discretionary literacy test southern states implemented for voting during Jim Crow days: they can use it to keep out everyone they don't want, while not even administering the test to people they do want.

Because their fortunes are 100% tied to him now, so if he goes down, they go with him.

The biggest own goal in recorded history.

I think a key difference between the two might be that Hinch is a teacher comfortable working with young raw talent to mold them, make them better, and teach them to win; while Leyland was a field general comfortable with leading a battalion of grown-ass men responsible for their own damn selves into battle.

Would it have been reasonable for Hinch to have quit and effectively end his major league career over it, versus riding it out and hoping he comes out the other end OK?

If this were the NBA, the Dodgers would probably be 120-21 right now.

And as we learned in the early 2010s, having a whole staff of aces on a team anchored by an inner-circle Hall of Fame hitter is also sometimes not enough to win rings.

Also, team that would seriously consider trading their core ace rotation pieces can do just as well if not better by waiting until the winter, versus hurriedly putting together a deal to beat an in-season deadline.

While I don't disagree with you in principle, I personally still value outright division titles and would not consider a team with a tie for the best record and the tiebreaker advantage as having won the division title, irrespective of whether that's considered rational anymore. In any event, as Lee says, I'm an old ****, applying the magic number to an outright league or division title is the way I learned it was done, this is the way I like to do it, and this is how I am going to continue to do it. In the meantime, enjoy another picture of a Detroit Tiger wearing this morning's magic number.

If you have ever been in a situation where someone who reports to you goes around you to your boss directly on some project and cuts you out of the process entirely, you would understand what happened to Hinch in Houston. I also think Hinch is the best actual Tigers manager of my lifetime, and he got totally hosed out of last year’s Manager of the Year award.

Couldn’t happen to a nicer team. Well, except maybe the Yankees.

He was one of my coaches for one of the Tigers fantasy camps I was at in the late 2000s, and he was a very, very good guy. He was engaged, personable, and always available for a chat.

No opinion involved. To win the division outright, the magic number is the (number of games in a season plus one) minus [(number of wins first place team has) plus (number of losses second place team has)]. In our case, it’s 163 - (82+69), which equals …

Well, at least he got good and paid on the way out.

I hear this kind of thing all the time after we lose a game. As a thought experiment, ask yourself this: had A.J. used the bullpen in the exact same manner—Bailey Horn for 1.0 inning, Keider Montero for 3.2 innings, and Tyler Holton for 0.1 inning—and they had all held the White Sox scoreless and we ended up winning, 5-4, would you still have regarded the use of the bullpen as horrible? You don't have to answer this out loud—I'm just offering it up to everyone here as a thought exercise.

He does say that, but that doesn't necessarily mean pull out all the stops in order to win the game every game of the 162-game season in Game 7 style. There are times during the regular season he does have to, for reasons of the moment. Apparently he did not regard this as one of those games, and I can see why.

You're right on all this. Carpenter is definitely on board. So are all the other young controlled guys. That said, A.J. did, in his uniquely diplomatic A.J. way, throw the two highest paid players on the team under the bus some. That's what led to my thin hypothesis, based solely on my experience living in the world, nothing more.

Responding only to your very narrow point here, Flaherty not Javy Baez have gotten any rings from A.J. I'm just speculating baselessly, building on my admittedly thin hypothesis from up the page.

Depends on the prospects and the pitcher. Have any examples of what you would like?

A couple of them look like marching blow-up dolls.