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The way Jeimer's contract is structured, there might end up being practically no difference. If Jeimer had been paid $7 million here and we traded him with two months left in the six-month season, the new team would be on the hook for a third of that, meaning $2.33MM. Jeimer is being paid $5 million base, so the hook for the team trading for him would be $1.67MM. However, there is a clause in his contract stipulating bonuses of $200K for five plate-appearance thresholds: 200, 300, 400, 500, and 600. He is at 325 PAs now, and he will be likely over 400 at trade time. When he hits 500 and 600, it will be the responsibility of the new team to pay that remaining $400K, which will bring the new team's total nut up to $2.07MM. The difference between $2.33MM and $2.07MM is basically a rounding error on a big league financial sheet, so I wouldn't think that the trade value of the lower number is more favorable as to affect what would come back in return.

This was definitely not a case of Candelario projected to be just a half-win player in 2023. This whole sidebar was predicated on my assertion that he was going to be much more! Either way, a billionaire owner of a capital-appreciating major league baseball team could have found their way to signing both Lorenzen and Candelario—doing so would not have even moved them from 19th to 18th on the MLB payroll rankings. But, like a I say, I think there was more than just we need to pocket the seven Ms.

FYI, this is the chart from last month's year-over-year inflation report: The bottom line number came in at 4%, and as we can see, almost a third of that is tied up in last June alone, which is now 12 months ago. Once that month falls off the year-over-year period with next month's report, there's a good chance the overall number is going to come in at two-point-something, which is gonna make everyone throw their hats up into the air and shout "huzzah!" Well, at least those of us over sixty. 😁 I might increase my positions in some stock indexes before then.

What, is it April 2022 already? I need to go back in time and get good and mad.

What a concept ...

No, just a possibility I raised. Players are occasionally the agents of their own career direction.

Maybe that was part of it, too, who knows, although, who knows whether he is actually that hubristic. I'm a nobody, but even I could see there wasn't anyone on the market, or in the system, who projected to be as good as Jeimer was. My best guess is that Harris was led by outside circumstances to not sign Jeimer, either by the boss or by the talent.

Would he turn it down? Maybe. Would the Tigers strongly advise him to not accept? Strikes me as more plausible. I'm not saying anything like 100% he's gonna be selected to be our rep, but I do think it is comfortably within the range of outcomes.

That might have been part of the calculation, although of bounceback season of this type, being a very good bet, should have been able to unlock some very good return in trade, the value of which could have far exceeded the extra couple Ms. I think the truth is probably closer to some combination of there being too much media pressure on Baby Doc was too great to dump Jeimer, and Jeimer himself not wanting to play here anymore under any circumstances.

The thinly-coded language, too, since "suburbs" is a clear stand-in for "white people". Not that he's alone on that, though—lots of people, including some liberal-minded people who simply don't consider it too deeply, and there are still a lot of them, do the same.

To be clear, my intention is not to respond to or engage with him, but to rib-nudge everyone else with the joke ...

Also:

Yeah, black lady is black and bad ... 😅

This was basically the reason I thought he would be due for a bounceback. His mean was way higher than his performance last year, and I'm pretty sure nearly everyone, including Scott Harris and A.J. Hinch, saw that.

It would have been Eduardo Rodriguez. Heck, it might still be Eduardo Rodriguez. EDIT: I don't understand why this makes you sad? He is on track to be back in time and he was the AL ERA leader for weeks even after he was injured.

His wearing it during a game increased its value by at least 5x all by itself.

I've never seen this—very cool! I did better than I thought I might.

They weren't all that good before May 1, either—17th in Offense on FanGraphs: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=8&season=2023&month=4&season1=2023&ind=0&team=0,ts&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2023-01-01&enddate=2023-12-31&sort=20,d

I did not lead this country to Trump with any insistence of any kind. Funny you talk about "poor" people, because no politician cares about people who are actually poor because as far as they're concerned, poor people probably don't vote, definitely don't donate money, and otherwise are not visible to them in everyday life. That's why when politicians talk about helping people do better economically, they talk about the middle class, not the poor. There are few political consequences for hurting the poor with policies designed to gut the welfare system. In fact, the more conservative politicians hurt the poor, the more they get rewarded with lower middle class votes. In any event, white people at all economic strata are socially more advantaged then similarly economically-positioned racial minorities, highly visible exceptions such as sports superstars and black politicians notwithstanding—although they're don't escape the everyday social problems of merely being black, either, as demonstrated here, here, here and, just last month, here.

I was once a proponent of considering that race problems are at their core class problems, since racial minorities have historical been relegated to second-class status, and a lot of the problems that plague black people emanate from their modest economic and educational means. But I've come around more to the idea that using class as a proxy for race is way too reductive, because white people at the same socioeconomic level still have at least social advantages, and in large part employment advantages, over racial minorities who exist at the same educational/wealth level. Affirmative action was in part supposed to address this, but it's also somewhat akin to a lottery, since it applies only to certain circumstances at only certain institutions, and is itself applied unevenly based in part on both discretion and quotas. It's a shame that the most perfect solution, true merit-based applied irrespective of demographics or special circumstance, is unavailable to us, since the acquisition of presumably agreed-upon merits is itself influenced by the social history of this country.

Although a system of just community colleges and mega-universities would be an apt allegory for America.

The best part will be when they start deputizing people.

Like another Yankees perfect game I can think of ...