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Wow that long foul almost instantly made it a game, right there.

Hinch did not gamble on a game in which he had a duty to perform, which is the only infraction specified in rule 21(e) that earns it. I think a year exile from the game was sufficient. I’m just glad we didn’t end up hiring Pedro Grifol. God, what a continuation of the perpetual-rebuild ****show that would have been, if for no other reason than Grifol was probably Al Avila’s preferred candidate, given their 30-year relationship dating back to the 1980s in Miami, and that means they would both probably still be on the job today.

You neglected to complete the middle word. 😏

Maybe, but that itself might be a problem. Maybe having a living legend around you is like having a museum piece that you revere instead of a teammate that you’re equal to. Particularly someone who is closer in age to your parents than to you. I don’t know. I think it’s interesting to contemplate.

One of the things I’ve been wondering about recently is how Miggy might be a complete drag on the team. I don’t his performance, which is drag enough—I mean just his 800-pound-gorilla presence. This is a team pushing towards the future, and Miggy is not only a relic of the past—he is a relic of the distant past. I’m wondering whether he has any connection with the other players on this team, most of whom remember him as this heroic icon from when they were little kids. Since he is famously un-mentor-like, I don’t see what he has to offer the young guys on this team aside from taking at bats away from them and giving them outs in return. I will be interested in seeing what happens when he finally does leave—will they miss having the heroic icon in their midst? Or will it be more like a weight lifted off their shoulders and they can finally be their young and energetic selves? I’m not inside the clubhouse so I can’t know. But it does strike me as very plausible.

I know. Still—**** that guy.

**** that guy.

If managers don't make any difference, then there's no point in firing him, at least not until he's given a roster built to win and he botches it.

I posted something along these lines a few years ago, maybe even on the old site, but it's worth an update here. At the end of 2016, his last decent full season and his fourteenth overall, Miggy's career offensive WAR (oWAR) of 78.2 ranked 20th overall among all players through their first 14 seasons, behind Rickey Henderson and Mike Schmidt, and ahead of Eddie Collins and Mel Ott. These four are all inner-circle Hall of Famers, and Miggy was among them, and at the time it would have seemed fair to assume that Miggy would end his career ready to take his place in that same inner circle. As of today, April 28, 2023, Miggy's career oWAR of 77.6—yes, his overall career offensive value has actually decreased across the slog of seven years—ranks 45th all time, behind Cal Ripken and Jim Thome, and ahead of Reggie Jackson and Harry Heilmann. Granted, he is still surrounded by Hall of Famers. Just not inner-circle Hall of Famers. These are guys who had to be great hitters to make the Hall of Fame, of course, but when you are discussing the greatest hitters in baseball history, you will mention Rickey and Schmidt fairly quickly, but you probably won't even mention Ripken and Thome at all before you move on to another topic. Miggy will be a Hall of Famer, and he will be elected on the first ballot, and he will deserve that. But he won't be an inner-circle Hall of Famer. Not anymore. He has firmly played himself out of that possibility.

Who would you like to see replace Hinch?

And the guy with the thread gave examples of people leaving those states and also others not coming to those states for those fascism reasons, so that's another data point in that hopper.

Maybe because it was before Cal was in pain all the time from pushing his body through every single inning of almost 1,000 games.

When abortion rights were upended last year, we talked about a brain drain from these traditionally economically-hot states that lean into the MAGA fascism with their legislating and rhetoric, like Texas and Florida, but also wannabe-hot states like Georgia and Tennessee and Idaho, and maybe even Virginia and the Carolinas, and I think we’re starting to see that happen, aren’t we?

Sununu said on Maher that he will vote for Trump again in 2024. That plus guns, so he’s still one of them.

Granted.

Not only are people saying this kind of thing out loud, they are doing so on camera, and on the record. Proud to look cruel. They must think it makes them look tough and cool. That’s what their Jesus would do, I guess.

Well, we already knew coming into the season that this team was going to be not only bad, but also not being even close to the team they’ll be trying to compete with in a couple or three years. In addition to a dying Miggy and a few awful veterans either marking time or simply out of their depth, we have a lot of green guys still getting used to the majors in the first place. Of the 31 guys who have taken the field for us so far, 17 of them have (parts of) only two or three seasons in the majors, including this season, and one more guy is Mason Englert. A couple, maybe a few, of them will make it long term. Most of them won’t. It’s part of the new process most of us are excited to see finally happen—maddeningly slower than we’d like, especially given the past seven seasons, but there’s only one Detroit Tigers, so it’s all we got. I’m unhappy about the incompetence, sure, because it sucks to see it happen before my eyes, but I don’t feel like I can carry any of the unhappiness much beyond the game. I get mad in the moment, then I’m over it. You know me, I’d been existentially angry about this organization for years, and I will do so again if/once it appears the Scott Harris approach has failed and it has to all get blown up all over again. I don’t think that will happen, but that’s what it would take.

The Orioles themselves did it a couple weeks ago, and more maddeningly, they got more hits than we did plus a couple of homers with 10 walks and still lost. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHA/CHA202304150.shtml

There is a distressingly lot of popular subculture that feeds this particular fantasy.

Do you really think someone is going to give Eduardo five years and nine figures this winter? He’s going to be 31 next year, he hasn’t had a really good season since 2019, his health is not great, he might have long COVID, and he bugged out on the team for a good part of last year. Does someone really want to take a chance on him for five years?

Todd Jones is a Grade-A word salad guy. Perfect fit for this broadcast.

Well, at least Schoop made only one out there.

Vierling walks to load the bases. If Schoop hits into a DP, we should give him his walking papers tonight.

Miggy with the whiff. Of course.

Just about anyone but Cabrera here. Edit: Orioles announcers, talking about Cabrera, as though he’s a threat to go deep. They must know that he’s not, I think they don’t want to tempt the woof gods or something like that.