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We pretty much know how this is going to go, don't we? Maxwell will claim she too was a victim of Epstein and was coerced into sexually abuse girls along with him; and also, Trump never came near any of it and they severed their relationship decades ago.

Greene, Tork and Carpenter are under control until 2029. If we can’t get Max, McGonigle, Liranzo et al here and contributing before then, then something’s gone horribly wrong! 😉 I do think Harris will make at least one move, but I wouldn’t be surprised that it will be a move nobody thought of before, nobody thinks much of at the time, he gets criticized for not going bigger, and the return turns out to be good solid contributors.

He seems nice.

Maybe it was code for “keep your ****ing mouth shut, bitch”?

Compartmentalization?

Trump is there to create the distractions about stupid **** while they gut government in plain sight so the can loot it and sell it off for parts.

Which leftists do you believe are inside the administration deep enough that they would be a “source familiar with the discussion” in which Bondi told Trump he was in the files?

I think Skubal is the only one we are in danger of losing soon and that’s not even next year, unless you’re also thinking of Gleyber and Javy and Casey and Flaherty. Given the team we have, I can’t envision what the one big fix is that would snap us out of a 1-9 funk and put us on track to being a .667 team again. We could liquidate Pipeline Top 100 guys for shiny top trade targets and still stumble our way to the finish line and go splat in October. Making a big move that fails risks Scott Harris’s plan to build the core he has said his goal is, not to mention putting his job at risk. He’s in a very different situation from a Jed Hoyer or Jerry Dipoto, so I’d be surprised to see Harris blow up his longer term plans for a ring-or-bust move next week.

Not wrong. I’ve been wondering whether something medical about Riley comes out after the season.

If the benchmark for Scott Harris is to get players along the lines of Suarez and Bednar and Clase and Keller and Cade Smith and do so without giving up any of our top five players, I think we’re going to have a lot of disappointed posters here on August 1. Although I do think we could get Taylor Ward at a cost of guys in the 6-20 range, if Taylor Ward were a guy Harris wanted. Not sure what would we do with Riley in that case, though.

This strikes me as a low-key brilliant move since they obviously don’t want to release anything and now they can blame the courts which they knew would block them from doing so.

All this makes a lot of sense. That doesn’t mean they won’t try it, especially after Trump primes the pump by claiming Obama and Biden administrations themselves changed official documents to cover their own crimes.

Nothing wrong with wanting what you want. I don’t think Harris sees it that way.

Speaking of Mannarino, what on god’s green earth is this guy even talking about??

Do you believe a 136 wRC+ with 200+ strikeouts is substantially worse than a 135 wRC+ with 156 strikeouts?

Do you believe in go for broke every time, everyone's available, this year or bust?

I suspect that due to our current skid, a lot of fans are going to be clamoring for Scott Harris to deal from the top of the system for players with great baseball card stats right now, in a bid to go for broke this year. (I am setting aside the idea of dealing mid-tier prospects like Jace Jung and Hao Yu-Lee for current All-Stars like Eugenio Suarez or Ryan O'Hearn or Emmanuel Clase or Brent Rooker, deals literally no GM on the other side would ever agree to.) Regardless of whether we could structure the kind of deal that could pry an All-Star off another team's roster, I don't think Scott Harris would do that kind of deal, and not because I think he's too scared or green to do a deal like that, but because I think he might believe the team is not at the organizational peak he or Ilitch envisions. Although people may not agree with this and think we should go for broke every time we have a chance to go to the playoffs, I believe Harris thinks he is still in the stages of building up to a vision of a peak team that will include key components from the current team, like Tork and Riley and Colt and Parker and Casey and Reese and Jobe and possibly Dingler, with certain guys still in the minors, like Max and McGonigle and Rainer and Liranzo. I think he is envisioning a time when most or all those guys are here and contributing, probably in the 2027-29 range, and that has no interest in either trading any of those guys, nor picking up anyone who would spend even a minute blocking them starting next year. Harris has a long-term plan and I believe he fully intends to see it to fruition, regardless of what facts on the ground are telling him now. Contrast our situation with that of the Cubs. Their roster is at peak right now, with Amaya, Busch, Hoerner, Swanson, Shaw, Happ, Crow-Armstrong, Tucker, and Suzuki all either fully mature or recently matriculated to the big club, with a potential rotation, if healthy, of Steele, Imagana, Boyd, Horton, Taillon, and Assad. They had already traded an All-Star 3B and two top 100 prospects for potentially only one year of Tucker, and they have a lot of prospect capital to deal for the pitchers they need to step in for those on the List now, particularly Steele, or will be by end of season. The Cubs are fully peaked and built to go for it all right now, especially since Jed Hoyer is at the end of his GM contract, so you can bet your sweep bippy he's gonna spend whatever has to to guide the team to win a ring this year, because at Wrigley Field, the current situation is, tomorrow never knows. Now is the time. They are on record with that. The Tigers, by contrast, have played with house money this entire season with a more or less patchwork roster as we've worked our way up to best record in the American League which, amazingly, was still the case this morning even after losing eight of our last nine. Our peak team is not now, as it is with the Cubs. Our peak team still in the future. That's why I don't see Scott Harris going for broke and liquidating top prospects for any guy with great baseball card stats this year. I see him going more for tactical fill-ins where we need them most, specifically (1) strike-em-out bullpen help, maybe a Ronny Henriquez, or a fireballing groundballer like Jose A Ferrer, and (2) probably a rotation piece, an under-the-radar guy like Eury Perez or Ryan Feltner or Michael Soroka. He might not get any of these guys if all these potential partners are insisting on unrealistic returns like, I don't know, Max and McGonigle for Henriquez and Perez. But I do think that is the pond he will be fishing in next week.

I knew I felt something was amiss last Friday. With Cleveland going ten in their last twelve, it’s a good thing we put so many games in the bank. During the radio broadcast, Dan and Dan were talking about a 6-11 swoon the ‘84 team had in August, during which the team was booed at home. I don’t know how the current swoon relates to the one from 41 years ago, but considering where each team was/is in its development curve, this seems more likely to be a massive correction. I’m not saying I believe it is for sure, but that is certainly within the range of outcomes.

What do you use to recognize that? I tried that with Shazam and it doesn’t work on my iPhone. Or at least it didnt when i tried it a couple times in the couple years ago range.

Non-game-related-post alert: I have recently noticed that the music coming out of the breaks on radio are now these generic rock riffs from studio musicians (or, perhaps more likely, created in Garage Band). It used to be actual songs that went fairly deep into the classic album rock catalog, like “Eighteen” from Alice Cooper, or “Highway Star” from Deep Purple. I understand why they would make the change, but it’s just one more small change for the worse that characterizes our current match through time.

Not quite ready for prime time, is he?

We don't need a first baseman, so I would think trading for Ryan O'Hearn is a non-starter. I also don't think Arizona will be so quick to sell, given how they just shoveled a bunch of money into Corbin Burnes's and Ketel Marte's pocket, as well as Corbin Carroll and Eduardo signed for big money just last year. Also, they're only 5-1/2 games out of the wild card with a third of the season to play, and while I would agree that they have much chance at all to make the playoffs, I'm hearing they themselves might not see it that way.