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More likely Turnbull for somebody we’ve barely heard of.

Skubal ended the season showing flashes of being an ace, but he has not yet established himself as a bona fide ace, so that idea that we could trade him for something like a single-digit MLB position prospect (and plus?!) fetches a little far in my view.

The ship sailed on beat journalism being objective a long time ago. McCosky is almost the platonic ideal of a beat reporter, from the team’s and players’ points of view. He is very much on the team, and very much with The Guys. Only if a player veers into the practically criminal, such as domestic abuse, will we hear explicitly negative reporting surrounding the team or players. Otherwise, if we want to try to get a sense of what might really be going behind the veneer bring presented that the clubhouse is one big Get Along Gang, we have to try to read between the lines, especially the quotes. Beyond that, though, media consumers no longer have any expectation that beat journalism will even trade in investigation, revelation, and conflict, and today’s sports fan is generally sophisticated enough to understand that if a beat reporter steps across some line with a team or a player, that reporter will be gone. Remember Anthony Fenech? He tried to dip his toe into the water of revealing innocuous conversations the player wasn’t happy with, and all it cost him was access and then his beat.

If Malloy ends up starting for the Tigers at third base on March 28, either he’s had a defensive epiphany over the winter, or our plans at that position have gone very, very wrong.

I think JHM has a shot at OF.

An 83-win team in a four-division league has a much better chance to make the playoffs than an 83-win team in a 16-team table.

I'm not talking about rule of law as a theoretical concept. I am talking about actual laws on the books, and rules on the books.

Here's another thing: in small divisions, there's a chance an 83-win team like the 2006 Cardinals makes the playoffs, in which anything can happen. In a 16-team table, there's no chance for this, unless you go eight teams deep in the playoffs, which, then why even bother with 16-team tables if you're not trying to control for .500 teams making the playoffs in the first place? Bottom line, owners and players want more chances to make the playoffs and earn playoff money, not fewer chances.

True. What player would not care about playing on a 15th-place team?

Is there reporting that Riley is expected to be in the outfield on March 28? I don't know which is why I'm asking.

We are seeing what happens when ostrich-like people trust the integrity of our system to puny norms instead of beefy rules or laws.

I DVR the GN 10 o'clock news specifically and only to see his weather forecast.

Greene had Tommy John, so I don't think he's playing outfield this year. But if I'm wrong and he is, then Kerry Carpenter may be on the bubble.

Setting aside the difficulty in selling a 14th or 15th place team, which I acknowledge you believe is not even a thing, probably the biggest challenge is to have a truly balanced schedule, which I acknowledge you may not believe is even important. But what the hell, let's spool out the thought exercise. The main principle of a truly balanced schedule would be exact same number of games against every other team, as well as the exact same number of home games and away games against each. That's the way they do it in all the big football leagues in the world, e.g., the English Premier League. So in that sense, the only way to truly balance everything for MLB is to have one big league, 32 teams, one table (i.e., no divisions), and the same number of games against each team, with home-away games split 50-50. The first thing to look into is six games against each opponent, three home and three away. That would end up being 186 games, though, which obviously is unworkable. The only other possibly workable solution would be four games against each opponent, two home and two away. Now, there may actually be some fan support for this, since it is only 124 games, and there are always some fans looking for ways to shorten the season as much as possible, probably to get baseball away from the buzzsaw that is the NFL and NBA. So MLB could start the season around May 1 and end it around September 30. That's 124 games in 152 or so days, plenty of off days to schedule to avoid conflicts with marquee NBA games like Lakers-Celtics, or NBA Finals games, or with the NFL on Sundays. The whole league can have the day off when these things happen. Sound crazy? It is, but they're already scheduling this year's LCS's to minimize Sunday play, and they're scheduling the World Series to avoid Sundays altogether. So precedent has been set. If we must maintain the two league setup, then one way to do it would be six games against each of the other 15 teams in the league, and four games against each of the 16 teams in the other league. This setup would actually be "mathemagical", because it would be (15 * 6) + (16 * 4) = 154 games for the season. Nostalgia, baby! It's the perfect solution to blend tradition with blowing up the current system. You as a fan may or may not care to follow the 15th-place Tigers for the whole year, but at least you'll be able to compare the players' stats with Charlie Gehringer's or Hal Newhouser's on a one-to-one basis. Tradition! One other idea, which you might actually kind of like, is to split up MLB into four separate 8-team leagues (or "conferences", which is probably where it's all going anyway). To make this happen, we'd have to throw out the whole idea of balancing schedules, but there are two possible approaches with this: play 12 games against each team in your own "league", and three against each of the 24 teams in the other three "leagues", for a 156-game season; or eight games against your own "league", and four against the other three "leagues", for a 152-game season. Of course, all these options assume that owners would even want to play in 32- or 16- or even 8-team tables, which I can assure you they will not. They will want to play in four-team divisions, so that's what we'll be getting. Assuming that, I think we are looking at 14 games against each of our divisional opponents, six games against each of the remaining 12 teams in our league, and three games each against each of the 16 teams in the other league, for a total of ... 162 games. Continuity, baby!

Unfortunately, there's no money in fewer teams in the playoffs.

Manning and Brieske for Soto and Machado. Make it happen!

I think he's going to end up in left.

This is a very sad day in Big Shoulders ...

I like Nick Castellanos a little better this morning.

He won’t be in the outfield next year. This is only for 2024, anyway, not for ever.

I don’t know how they think they’re gonna get 218 votes for Gym. There may not be a half-bad chance McHenry is still interim Speaker by Christmas, which is probably to be expect, since the Trumpies made an art form of appointing interim everything during that administration.

I also think this particular Republican regime we have, which credits itself for its muscularity as well as its disregard for what it perceives as the weakness of diplomacy, is leading the entire America body politic rightward when it comes to military response in general. I think they’re all in on what’s basically a kill-em-all-let-god-sort-em-out approach. I believe the Biden administration feels truly differently about it, and perhaps even Netanyahu is on board with proportionality and distinction, but I don’t think our local right wingers are all that concerned with the killing of however many Gaza civilians are in the way, and they can lean on the Hamas-looks-like-civilians excuse as their get-out-of-jail-free card on it.

Here are is a page of the TV work Mike Ferrin wants you to hear, so make your own judgment based on this: http://www.mikeferrin.com/tv-mike.html His pipes are not high-pitched, necessarily, but quite reedy, which I feel like works well for radio, especially minor leagues or college. He sounds a bit like the main Cubs TV guy, Boog Sciambi. It’s also hard to get a feel for how Ferrin lets a whole game flow, or how informative he can be, from just these examples. He did include a chemistry clip here, so he wants us to know that yukking it up with his partners is solidly within his skill set. He seems like he would be a perfectly serviceable hire for a mid- to low-level team. His chances might depend on how well he can make love to Bally promos, plus how little the Tigers will object to him.