gehringer_2

yeah - pleasant surprise so far. Someone to watch.

I promise I will note it when it happens.

yes - that's why I mentioned split starts - or whatever pitching chaos version he spins up. You might even talk JV into coming into games in the 3rd - it's a spot where he could get some wins even if he can't be effective over 5 full.

LOL - it's a little out of the box. The counterpoint is that Perez, Meadows, and even Keith (though he looks fine so far) do have have options. (The other guy doing well in ST there is no room for is Jung). I tend to see them sending Parker down and letting him force his way back by hitting well at Toledo. On one hand, you're taking away away a guy's spot who finished the season as a 'regular', but OTOH, it's really because Vierling is back, who can be a difference maker with the bat.

I think there are two competing ideas at play. The first is is the what you describe, bring guys you want even if they seen slow out of the gate because it's easy enough to make changes in a couple of weeks if it's not just noise. But the second is: how much pressure is there not to scuffle out of the gate. They started great last season, but the two prior years are still in the memory banks.

crud. I didn't know he had been called up so many times before (Phi/Chi)- I only remembered that the Tigers had looked at him before he went Korea. That does make it interesting though because they aren't going to want one of their better arms, if that's what he turns out to be, wasted in long relief. Then again, maybe there will be split starts in some other guys' futures.

I don't take issue with anything but the last line - if Anderson is pitching well but doesn't make the rotation, they will want the 6th starter in Toledo starting so he's ready to start when they want him. This Tiger org hasn't been big on transitioning guys to or from the bullpen on the fly.

it's a logical fallacy to believe what is wrong or right in the specific must also be wrong or right in the general, or vice versa. That it is a good idea not to go to work on a day you happen to be sick does not mean you should stop going to work period. The fact that apples are good to eat does not mean every apple is edible. Happily, the human brain has the wiring to learn to make such logical distinctions, if the brain in question is willing to make the effort. the corollary is that platitudes are no substitute for judgement.

And noise reduction is one of the things that the search for advanced metrics is all about. Launch angle and exit velo are much better indicators of a hitter's hitting health than whether the fly ball was caught!

In the same way you can never step into the same river twice, no human being is the same person two days in a row. In the 24 hrs billions of cells have died and been replaced. In some people's genome that generates little overall change, in other DNA sets the outcome of that turn over is constant change in the overall organism, sometimes better, sometimes worse. In general, only people who are lucky enough to maintain a pretty consistent phenotype ever get to high levels of sports performance, but even then, the genetic timing and injury and repair factors all remain variable and that's before psycological factors are considered in the mix at all. I'm deliberately over drawing the argument here, but the idea that athletes are robotic automatons is just wrong. Athletic competition exactly selects for the most consistent performers in the population, but that consistency is always on the edge of being lost from both internal and external forces. All this goes on at the same time that the game injects massive random uncertainty into outcomes. Both are true.

LOL - yes. And anyone who lives in De'Troit should know better!

When they signed him it seemed the intention was for Anderson to make the rotation. I guess bringing in JV changed that calculus somewhat, but the team had to know going in that JV might end up not being one of the 5 best pitchers, and for that matter that could be true of Flaherty and/or Mize as well. I don't think Harris lacks the stomach to make the tough call if it has to be made, but that that call might be tougher than usual if it had to be JV was always a risk going in.

I guess maybe because the season is over, but he wasn't half as PO'd tonight as he was after losing to M in the 1st game.

they don't even have to use anti-ship missiles, all they need to do if float a bunch of mines out into the gulf that will self-deploy out in the straight. I would note that due to litany of procurement problems, the LCS program has been dramatically reduced.

and you have to put boots on the ground on the Houthi side as well.... Also - the terrain in SE Iran is very similar to Afghanistan, where we had so much success with ground operations in the past.

This is way worse than Iraq. The impacts of Iraq were fundamentally local. The impacts here are global. A huge mistake Trump has made (among hundreds) is backing Iran so far into the corner that they have nothing to lose. At this point they are perfectly happy to see the whole Western energy economy in the toilet. What's it to them? Trump isn't offering them any off ramp worth taking. Iran knows all they have to do is hold out somehow for a little while 30 days, 60 at the most, and Trump will have to fold. $150+ $/bbl oil with every country at each other's throat trying to insure their own supply, employment down, inflation up, every multinational will be pouring millions into political efforts to end this. He thought he held all the cards, but he should have read Dune "He who willing and able to destroy a thing is the one who controls it" That's Iran, the Straight of Hormuz and the world's energy economy.

This called having no elastic in the 'Elasticity of Demand'

Hinch is not above riding a hot hand even if he knows the player will be gone by the ASB. Once the season starts, short term results are still results, you take 'em if you can get 'em. The great baseball debate has always been: are players streaky or is it just stochastic noise? The answer is 'Yes'. The performance of the human machine is the combination of hundreds of factors that just might all align once in a guy's life for a week or month or 3 or even one season and then maybe never be seen again. Other guys will turn in year after year of consistency. OTOH, BaBIP buries a tremendous amount of true performance in its noise generation. But both things are true, always have been. And good teams take advantage of understanding it all.

were they resting Gibson in the 3rd or was he hurt again?

an oil barrel is 42 gallons. assume yield to valuable product from the barrel is 90%. Normal refinery mark-up is about $10/bbl processed. For $110 crude barrel that's a base cost of $3.20 before retail markup and taxes. MI gas tax is $0.52 - so make it $3.75 before retail markup of about 10% which gets you to $4.10. Add the reality is if supplies get tight, refineries will jack up margins by another $10 barrel or so, and you are near $4.50.

and quite possibly recession. If the market goes into a funk - even if it only flattens out for an extended term, 1%er spending will slow, and that's been driving a lot of economic activity.

US Admin has an insurance scheme for tankers, I don't think any of the operators are going to be too wild about sending anything through the straight without a full escort. The USN probably doesn't have enough ships left in the fleet to do that, and Iran would probably love nothing more than a bunch of US Navy hulls in the narrows of the straight to take pot shots at hoping one gets through.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-market-chaos-deepen-more-163727122.html

exactly. Perfect in fact. Sadly the dems are themselves so foolishly weak kneed they will probably cave just when they have a success in their grasp.

Iran claims US attacked a water desalination plant, Iran returned the favor targeting one in Bahrain. Desalination is the only thing that allows the nations around the Persian gulf to support their populations in the desert. If desalinaiton plants are knocked out entire populations will have to flee, fast. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/world/middleeast/desalination-plants-iran-bahrain.html