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A lot of mental illness manifests itself in assholery. We might even be able to make a case that being an unrepentant asshole is in itself a sign of mental illness to some degree, in that someone engaging in asshole behavior either refuses to change in the face of overwhelming evidence that it’s a social liability, or they recognize its liability but can’t control their behavior before the fact. I can’t think of many people who understand that being an asshole is a problem but who engage in it with aforethought for strategic advantage—which in itself maybe be signs of sociopathic tendency. I don’t know if I buy this line of argument, because it is interesting to contemplate.

Which is kind of worrisome because Americans want desperately to elect conservatives, because we are at our core a religious country. If the RNC can figure out how to clean up their fascist candidates and keep them from acting out during campaigns, convincing them to wait to do so until they actually get elected in majority numbers, we’d be goners.

Especially since the current practice is to Driveline pitchers in an effort to squeeze every last MPH out of their arms.

I would like to see a young pitcher be better than basically worst in the league, and I don't think that's asking so much. Perhaps you are expecting too little, understandable given our recent history as Tiger fans.

I can see that Brieske's not a finished product, although I don't see any ascending going on just yet. He's pretty much at the bottom and although there is certainly someplace he can go rather than up, up is the only place he can go and still hope to keep a job, at least in North America.

Exacerbated by the fact that no one around him can say no to him.

I will say this: he does have slightly above average velocity and well-above average spin. Maybe that's what kept his head off the chopping block. maybe the new team coming in thinks they can do something with that.

Did he? The topline numbers look OK, but he was still a bit ragged under the hood. Low strikeouts, low BABIP, high LD rate, more pull. I simply don’t see how he fit into Harris’s control the plate dictum.

Follow-up tweet:

All due respect, sounds a bit like wishful thinking.

If Brieske is our #2, then kill me now

Meet the new boss … 😉

Matthew Boyd for 10 bills plus incentives? Wow. Um … OK … Hopefully Harris knows something about him we don’t.

Sounds very familiar!

There a long industrial train track tunnel right next to the south side ballpark, and woe to you if you have to walk through it past the multiple bucket drummers encamped there to get to your car after a game, as thousands of people do, unless you’re already deaf.

I think the difference with Africa, with respect to how European nations acted there versus Russia in the Baltics et al, is that Europeans didn’t want to occupy the African land. They wanted to basically enslave the native population to help them extract and then abscond with the natural resources there, so they couldn’t genocide the population there. This, versus certain European nations wanting to wipe out other populations in other European countries so their citizens could take over their lands for a bit more lebensraum.

I think in general it’s because independents are less politically-engaged than those who identify as R or D, and people who are less engaged won’t act if they want things to continue as they are, but they will act if they want things to change. I think that got upended this year as independents were uniquely motivated to keep things as they are.

OK I see how that can make sense from a technical standpoint.

Are you sure? The minute the season ends he’s retired, and the buyout is intended as a negotiated hedge against a team not exercising an option, which I believe becomes a non-factor if he retires. So I don’t understand how he still has a claim on the buyout money.

Since Miggy has announced that he will retire after 2023, does that mean we are no longer on the hook for the $8 million buyout? Seems to me that would be the case.

I would have liked for Candelario to have stayed I think he's a good bet to recover to at least a 2-win player, which is worth seven million bucks. I don't think the lineup is necessarily stronger with Miggy than without him, but I don't know if he's even going to be on the field for much of next season.

Probably goes without saying, but they are obviously locking down people for reasons other than COVID. What they're finding, though, is that there can be a high cost to doing so as even the most pliant population will reach a point where they feel they have little left to lose by pushing back.

It's worth reiterating here that TV and radio stations are bound by FCC rule to offer political advertisers, including candidates, the lowest rate for a given daypart that any advertiser pays that station during the defined campaign season. That might make it sound like political advertisers get dramatic bargains when they buy time, but in reality, it's more of a boondoggle for the stations not because they offer candidates super-deep discounts on rates, but because they get to charge all the other advertisers elevated rates under the guise of not being able to offer their customary rates because it's running during "politicals". It's why we see almost 100% of prime-time local spots being political during the season: few other advertisers can afford to run at those elevated rates. So they either rush into other, cheaper dayparts; shake up their media or station mix for the time being; or just go on hiatus until it's all over. Steady advertisers like QSRs and dealer groups, who run promotional pillars basically 52 weeks a year and can't afford to go dark for even a week, simply budget double-digit CPP increases in the short-term and just deal with it.

Spoiler alert: Fangraphs likes the sign.

This one is a little cleaner ...