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I gotta ask: does Perry Greene actually have to fuck that woman? God help him. I wouldn’t fuck her with a stolen dick. That’s my political humor. People like it when you’re topical. (h/t GC)

MTG and her ilk never believed in hippy-dippy Gospels Jesus. They believe in ass-kicking Revelations Jesus. For them, it’s all about joy and pleasure for the Jeez-elites blessed with wealth and power, and pain and punishment for the rest of us mopes.

Arrange with another insurance company to give you the same policy you have, then cancel the company you’re with now. They can’t make you ride out the term or keep your money.

I was an 11-year-old kid once, and I can vouch for that.

If the Giants win 100 again this year, maybe give Gabe Kapler NL Manager of the Century.

I have a buddy who is very well-educated and prides himself as a when-in-Rome guy, knowledgeable about how to talk and act and eat like a local in any city he's in, but he is congenitally unable to accept that it is not pronounced "new-FOUND-lund".

But how does your dad say "Newfoundland"?

I was wondering that too. Kris Bryant has a much lower strike zone than his height would suggest, so i will be interested to see how that manage to that.

Indeed they may. We can hope so, because the system is probably done feeding us top guys for at least a few years.

I know we're not punting for the next three years. What I'm saying is that we don't have the depth of system to fill the holes we need to compete, so we will either have to make trades or sign free agents to patch those holes, and it's going to be on Jay Sartori's team to provide the data we need to do it right. I don't think we have the depth to trade for an known All-Star performer right now, but we might have the depth to trade for a unpolished gems that the Sartori team can uncover. We'll see. We'll also see whether baby Doc will pony up the dough if it is established All-Stars we're going after.

Ty Madden and Dylan Smith are 21 or 22 and both at A+. I would guess that projects to a cup of coffee in 2023, shuttling between the minors and Detroit in 2024, and making the roster for good in 2025, when they may make WAR-positive contributions. That is, if all goes well. The organization is just now starting to balance the system with position players a bit more, but again, if as you say, that hyped-up talent is currently at Lakeland, we're probably looking at 2026+ for getting starting-level two-win performance out of one or more of them. If all goes well. Meanwhile, the window is cracked open now, and will swing wide open in 2023 and 2024. We don't have the system we need to feed us for that period, so we will need to patch holes for those next three seasons if we want to compete for divisions. That's the basic point I was making. In the meantime, the system can percolate with the prospects you named so they can come to Detroit in the three seasons after that. But if we punt for the next three years while we wait for that, then really, what the heck are we doing here?

Unsurprisingly, when we look at umpires who have called 60 or more games at the plate across the past six-plus seasons, we see that Angel Hernandez is in the bottom third for accuracy. I'm sure you'll recognize lots of other old-timey names on the list, too. Consistent with research we've all seen showing younger umpires are much more accurate calling to the basic strike zone than older umpires.

We are a long, long, long way from getting anything from Ty Madden, Wilmer Flores or Dylan Smith. Probably nothing decent until at least 2025. We're going to need something in 2023 and 2024 as well, now that the window has opened. Who do we got? And at this point in time drafting and international signings is a strategy to help us in 2027 and beyond, not in the next few seasons. Plus those three, as well as Brieske—a 27th-round pick who has pitched exactly five major league innings, so I'm going to hold off on agreeing that he's the guy we need even at #5—are all right-handed pitchers. I know you're not advocating building our entire system on right-handed pitching, but if these are the best examples of guys who are on the brink of helping us that you can provide, might that not suggest that the system, even as you characterize it, is still too weighted toward the right-handed pitching basket? Where are the impact position players in the system who are close to helping us during this window?

Maybe Xi sincerely believes the Trumpian theory that COVID will simply go away in a few weeks.

Assuming the Committee couldn’t simply subpoena email providers or ISPs for the emails—which, I don’t know why not, but let’s pretend that’s the case—wouldn’t all Eastman have to do is destroy all the evidence? I would guess the criminal liability of destroying evidence would be far less than the criminal liability of being found to have plotted the overthrow of the United State government. Plus, I assume he would be protected by the mob family while in custody.

The irony being that singles have been disappearing from the baseball landscape like passenger pigeons.

And here lies the object lesson about the danger of having a top-heavy system: your top prospects all come up at once, and if they are not exactly ready to go at that moment, there’s nobody of consequence coming up behind them to further strengthen the team. So to fill the remaining holes, the Tigers will have to either make impactful trades, and who knows whom they deal to make that happen; or they sign impactful free agents, and who knows for sure whether Baby Doc will spend what it takes to make that happen. It may not be now-or-never quite yet, but given the way the Tigers constructed the rebuild, it’s definitely the beginning of now. With the Sox gimpy and stumbling, we would normally have a golden chance to pounce if we weren’t so gimpy and stumbly ourselves. Maybe this is the year we start to find out just how serious and competent Jay Sartori’s team is at setting us up to move assets and patch holes Rays-style.

What made it bad was the the strike zone was morphing around all game, as it does with Angel and as was noted by the announcers; and also, it was a 3-2 count with one out in the ninth and Schwarber’s team down a run.

Kyle Schwarber is definitely up there with George Brett now in the pantheon of losing your shit during a game.

I sincerely love how he brags that everyone calls him "Sir".

I meant to come in here and guess 4/23 but I got waylaid by other things and didn't have time to get around to it. I will still take my victory lap. 😎

Apparently, Chris Fetter is making better progress with the pitchers than Scott Coolbaugh is making with the hitters.

So far this pitching staff has performed like one of the best in baseball, and that's not because of the defense, which is still among the worst in baseball. But while we expected some improvement from the rotation (and have gotten it), it is the bullpen that is really surprising me. And the interesting part of that is, Soto has done nothing to contribute to the improvement.

Well, at least Javy didn't strike out that time ... Yeah, this is the Javy who will frustrate you.