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Are we sure Matthew Boyd is the guy we want to mentor the young pitchers that we have in the big leagues and that are coming through our system?

I know very little about the vagaries of DNA but I do find this pretty interesting from a social and anthropological standpoint.

lol if Trump was going to blame someone Who would he ever not blame? Is even Ivanka untouchable now?

Or 73-0. One or the other.

Long as we're talking about MLB media and how much it can suck, here's something else new this year that I hate. Let's start with the setup: One of the things I have liked about watching MLB feeds from other cities is when they run local (actually RSN) commercials. A lot of them might be for national or even regional brands, but sometimes they will be for a local car dealer or law firm or some advertiser you can't see anywhere else. I find that somewhat charming. I see that on Extra Innings on D*TV. Even better when it's a Blue Jays and you get Canadian commercials. Yeah, I know, you Detroiters are like, big whoop, because you can see that on channel 9 every day. But for we folks who are removed geographically from that possibility, it's pretty neat. You don't get that on MLB.tv games, since the League sells out all that commercial time to national advertisers—or, more exactly, they bonus their top sponsors spots during all the breaks on MLB.tv games. That's why you see the same commercials over and over, like the Scotts lawn spot with the stupid bagpipes, or the Range Rover spots with the ridiculously over-the-top orchestral music. No advertiser would ever pay for that kind of relentless, non-stop, punch-you-in-the-face-repeatedly frequency because it actually hurts brand perception, and pretty quickly at that. I'm a little surprised Scotts and the other sponsors don't request frequency caps on a per game basis or something. Maybe it's such a tiny deal to them that they don't even know, or else don't give a sh*t. On the radio side, on MLB At Bat, you would hear the commercials that run on the flagship station, and it was great, because radio spots during baseball games are far more local, much less slick, and thus more charming than even local TV spots. Sometimes you might even hear spots for a single restaurant or one lone insurance agency. That's pretty cool. You might hear local spots during some breaks on the radio broadcasts on the Sirius app, although you're just as likely to hear Sirius pound you with promo spots for their other channels, especially channels devoted to sports you might hate. (Or, to be honest, sports I might hate.) OK, now for the peeve: As of this season, MLB At Bat no longer allows local radio spots to run during game breaks. They bonus that time out as well, and to sponsors of your local team. So no matter what feed I'm listening to, whether it's Tigers', Cubs', White Sox', Guardians', Dodgers', doesn't matter, they play local Chicago spots. And for me, it's always Cubs-oriented spots for Sloan toilets or Binny's Beverage Depot or North Shore Hospital or whatever. (Never a White Sox-oriented spot, though. I'm not sure quite yet why that is.) Now here's the worst part, in my estimation: no matter where I am—whether I'm in Chicago, or I go to Milwaukee, or Green Bay, or Detroit, or anyplace else in the country, maybe even the world—I hear the exact same Chicago Cubs-oriented spots run on At Bat. I don't even get the spots that are local to the cities I am physically in. MLB has determined, for whatever reason, that since I am a Chicagoan—and, in their estimation, a Cubs fan—they are going to present to me the same spots for Sloan, or Binny's, or North Shore Hospital over ... and over ... and over ... and over ... and over ... you get the idea. And of course, 40% of all the spots I hear feature the putatively dulcet tones of accidental Hall of Famer Pat Hughes, the sound, tone, and smarmy delivery of whose voice I absolutely despise. My only recourse is listen to the Sirius feed for the sometimes local spots, although the down side of that is that they are literally several minutes behind live action. But that's a trade-off I don't mind making to avoid the crushing sameness of the commercial during breaks.

Not only this, and I don't know whether this is happening to anyone else, but once or twice every week, I can't open a game in an MLB.tv app on any platform unless I reauthenticate my Extra Innings credentials yet again. That's new starting this year. Didn't have that problem in prior years. As for the Carplay app, I don't bother. If it's a home game, I listen to the Tigers feed on my Sirius in the car; if it's an away game, I will either run the Tigers feed through the At Bat app if it's working, and if it's not, open it in the Sirius app.

Thanks. I put a tick in my calendar for next late May to review this and consider letting this go.

Saved it to my "Active Pop" YT playlist. Thanks for the tip.

I think the hope with Cisnero is that he would have good topline numbers and then they can flip him in July. If they can't, I won't be surprised to see him released sometime after the deadline.

Hinch made them suck. 😅

Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute—does Don Bongino actually not know who Stephen King is? Really? A thousand times more people in the world have zero idea who the **** Don Bongino is than have no idea who Stephen King is.

Very similar relationship to last season when he had a 1.08 ERA against a 3.67 FIP. And that was when he was walking something like seven guys per nine. But his ERA is still under league average! Quick, get the Phillies on the line before it's too late!

Part of the mixing and matching Hinch did in April to start arriving at the conclusions we all see today. He probably felt he had to give him one more chance to prove whether he could come back. Looks like we have our answer on that 100% now. Here's an interesting stat, probably means nothing, but: in the eight games Schoop has been used as a sub, he is 4-for-13 with two doubles and a walk, which works out to a .308/.357/.462 line. Again, probably means nothing ... ? 🤷🏽‍♀️

... is a top ten offense by wRC+ during the past two weeks.

Hinch has a real talent for batting practice management? My, that doesn't sound like a very efficient use of his energies. 😉

I totally agree with your implication that Hinch’s match-up/mix-up/optimize the lineup stuff was not simply so he could look like a diabolical genius.

I’m with you on all this, but really, does it even matter? All he has to do is just say he wasn’t given a chance, and that’s good enough not only for the hundred million or so bamboozled red hats, but, distressingly, also for tens of millions of others who know him only as an ex-President—just like Obama is—and who don’t follow any of this even the littlest bit. It’s not as though any of them are going to fact-check this online and be horrified into setting or changing their minds. And the latter category—those who don’t really know or follow—that’s the real prize, because they could decide to vote for him at the last moment knowing nothing more about him than the thing he said the day before the election.

Oh my god, watching this was so … much … FUN!

I trust that Harris won’t make a trade just to make a trade. That was Avila’s jam.

So, basically, what’s being derided as Hinch playing “chess” was moving players in and out of lineups and situations was apparently to figure out who could do what where, as he did the first several weeks of the season to a chorus of complaints, and when he’s found someone who could do a job consistently, he has stuck with them, such as Ibanez starting at third base three of the last four games. Innnnnteresting …

I can’t give out any more reactions today, but trust me when I tell you, I’m reacting. 😁

Well, you know the old saying: “If it ain’t Baroque …”

OK.

That's just pop music in general, the kind seemingly synthesized in a lab in a bid to appeal to everyone. They were complaining about the very same thing during the swing era.

I'd be a lot more open to keeping or even extending Rodriguez if he'd been more consistent through his career to this point. I would say the same thing about Baez.