gehringer_2

you're overthinking it.... The other thing about oil is that you'd think it would be relatively easy for producers to cut back production and the market would be very elastic - but it turns out not so much. Oil coming from secondary and tertiary recovery methods is not so easy to stop and start, and the places were the oil is still easy (Middle East) most of the them need the money too much to cut back. Saudi is the only place that can really soften or firm the market - The question is what do they think about the war In Ukraine? Pre- MBS they were pretty anti-Russia. With MBS, who knows?

who really knows? If it's a 'good' jury, in the sense of understanding what is presented, then yes should be damaging because the prosecution succeeded in the only objective for calling Daniels, which was to show that Trump had adequate reason to pay her to shut up. that her story in public would reasonably be considered a threat to his election chances. I don't think any of the particulars of her testimony or even it's truth mattered much per se; as long as she presented as a person that could damage his election chances. I don't see that anything the defense did undercut building that premise. But the fact that that's how it looks on the outside is just a guess as to how it plays in the jury room. I am old enough to be a little surprised that this jury isn't being sequestered, but I suppose in the era of the smart-phone that's pretty pointless.

Bigbie got off to such a slow start, made it look like his hot finish last season was just a mirage - but he's started to turn it around a bit. 900 OPS so far in May.

I think the line that may do more to get him convicted came later from the secretary - the reported quote from Trump that you "hire good people and then DON'T trust them." They're riveting down the case that no money got spent in the Trump org with out Trump knowing exactly who/what/why.

Baez started the season poorly and has only gotten worse. 524 OPS in April, 456 in his last 55 PA and 178 (!) so far in May. He has a good chance of hitting under 150 over his 1st 150 PA. At this point it would be a breakthrough just to get last years Baez back - as bad as it seemed then Looking at BR, Urshella has played about as many MLB games at short as McKinstry - neither has a good defensive rating in what is too small a sample to mean much for either of them. They would at least be a R/L platoon pair if you bench Javy.

If Torkelson doesn't straighten out, it's easy enough to put somebody - probably Canha, at 1B. But catcher and SS are going to be hard to fix. We have guys we can put at SS, but none that probably won't cost us runs there, and Dingler is only managing 230 against AAA pitching so that's not very promising.

The best deals for a team like the Tigers do not give up young for old, they are the ones where you have done your homework on up and comers around the high minors or green rookies that haven't proven anything, like Austin Jackson and Max Scherzer. But of course deals like that kill your roster value if the guys you bring don't pan out. So really - it's the same as it ever was - if you can evaluate talent - especially that others miss, you can build a winner. Or you grow your own, or you can spend $250M on payroll. That's really all there is available to management. I think there is a lot of magic thinking that the right GM can just wheel and deal his team into contention. Well, he can try, but in most cases what looks like short term success is burning a system's future seed corn, the way Dombrowski burned ours.

I almost became a fan, but I couldn't get there from here...

yup - Roger McGuinn's 12 string and America's voicing, but their sense of rhythm needs work - boring. Related: I've read the studio used session men on the Byrd's first recording work because they didn't believe McGuinn could play the guitar.... LOL

LOL -If you look up Xenophobe in your dictionary you are sure to find a picture of Ann Coulter.

We really have too few technically informed people in the US gov. Ukraine has started going after Russian refining capacity in a big way - some reports say they have disabled 15% of Russia's refining capacity. That may not sound that high but nobody leaves excess refining capacity around - it's too expensive, so capacity tends to match demand very closely - thus even a moderate reduction in capacity creates shortages. But the US - apparently in it's official ignorance, has complained to Ukraine that they don't want them to do that because it will push up oil prices. Except that if one user can't refine oil, you have reduced crude oil demand - that means MORE crude oil is left for the world market, not less, which means crude oil prices do not go up when you disable Russian refineries. Engin-Econ 101 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-09/us-slams-strikes-on-russia-oil-refineries-as-risk-to-oil-markets

speaking of which - another terrible story in WaPo out of FLA about incompetent deputies who charged into the wrong apartment and killed a USAF airman. Resident had a gun, cops apparently did not identify, so another case of trigger happy cops (the young man was Black, of course) but another case of a someone buying a gun for their protection and it being the direct cause of their death. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/09/florida-police-shoot-black-airman-roger-fortson/

Now don't go giving the GOP any ideas about how to violate the Constitution in yet new ways!

Sadly, if it was hoped his approach would rub off on Torkelson it's been a fail so far.

Necheles running into heavy weather going after Stormy https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-hush-money-trial-live-updates-stormy-daniels-testimony/

situation with the lake may be a sore subject for the locals.

I would say yes and no. I didn't expect Olsen and Flaherty to be this good - didn't expect Lange to pretty much straighten out, but I also didn't expect the hitting to come out of the gate dead *again*. So therein lies the frustration - knowing that they are exceeding expectation on the mound and that if they were only meeting expectations in the batter's box they'd be pretty good. And TBF, it's not even that many guys - it's primarily Catcher, Javy, Torkelson, Keith and Meadows - and McKinstry is also down in the power dept. Perez has replaced Meadows, and so far is producing. As I've noted, Keith is having decent ABs and terrible BaBIP luck so I"m OK letting that play out more. So it comes down to what to do about Torkelson, Javy and the Catchers. Possible strategies? I'd like to see Jake get more AB because he seems to hit better when he plays more regularly and Kelly isn't giving us anything anyway, but that is no sure thing. With Torkelson? I don't know what they are asking him to do - but if it were me I'd tell him I was going to fine him every time he puts a ball to the left of the 3B whether it's a double or not until he starts using the whole field (and whole K zone) again. I don't know what else there is to do - he's totally frustrating right now with his pull craziness. It's easy to say send him down but they need him producing. They can start giving Canha PT at 1B but there is no high power roster replacement waiting at Toledo for 1B. And unfortunately the same is true at SS. I don't want to have to trust McKinstry's glove - and he's not hitting a lot either, and there isn't any obvious SS candidate available. So stuck. If they really wanted to take a flyer out of the box - they could let Perez try going back to SS. Maybe having made the big leagues he'll be over his throwing nerves. A real long shot but Javy is really looking cooked as a hitter and they are going to be forced to try something.

The change that the tech has produced is that something that in the past only a few guys could do because the optimum way for them to do it came to them 'naturally', a lot of guys can do now because the tech gives you immediate quantitative feed back on each thing you try, it's like you can do a whole career's worth of trial and error on mechanics/grips/releases in a single series of bullpens. So more guys can get to their highest ceilings. It is probably also allowing teams to sift through prospects more efficiently so they find the top ceiling guys faster and spend less system resource on guys with lower ceilings. When you narrow a distribution, its average can increase without its maximum increasing (the same can be true the other way of course). So even if today's best MLB pitchers are not doing things that no-one ever did, there are more guys doing those things and the worst pitchers are likely a lot better - so on a day to day average pitching has gotten tougher. I tend to think this same statistical truth is what underlies the live ball controversy. The league can claim they haven't changed the ball spec, but if the manufacturer over time has naturally started to produce balls with less variation, but that reduction has taken place mostly in the percentage of balls on the softer end of the specification range, the average outcome is a liver ball on average even if the the spec never changed and the livest balls in the distribution are the same as they ever were.

Raskin is a gem. I hope his health holds and he's around for many years.

I've had a suspicion for a long time that there is something wrong with the way the Tigers/Hinch manage and prep hitters, but the one thing I've almost never found my self wondering about with Hinch is his pitcher management. He is really damn good at it and if the Tigers have any chance at all that will be one of the reasons why.

Right now there is almost nothing to pick between Foley, Lange, Chafin and even Vest. Hinch has his match-up tables that's pretty much as complicated as it gets. Foley had a nice stretch early when he was lights out but in general he does gives up contact. He wanted LHP to close against a heavy LH team and the RH hitter in the mix got him. You can't use pitchers for one hitter anymore - that's life. There was nothing wrong with Hinch's decision matrix (haha - listen to me defend Hinch). He put them in a position to execute and they didn't. They gave up 2 errors and had 7 hits and no walks in 10 innings. You won't win many on the road against a 600 team with that output esp without the long ball.

Every run counts the same. Without looking it up , I'll guess no pitcher in MLB history has thrown for full season with a zero ERA. You can hope for shutouts from starters and and perfect innings from relievers but if you count on them you're gonna be in hurt. When you go 6 innings at a time without scoring a run you're going to lose a lot of games.

and Jake threw the ball into CF after Wentz stupidly threw over there a 2nd time. That run was just as costly as the HR into a short corner with the wind blowing out.

Tiger righthand power hitter won't go to right, makes an out. Cleveland hitter goes with the pitch and ties the game. Tigers lose the mental competition.

you could have bet the farm that the 3-1 pitch to Torkelson was going to be exactly what it was - outside fastball. But would Tork think the game and sit outside? Of course not - he gotta get something to pull. So instead he's forced to swing at 3-2 out of the zone that he can't get too. Baseball players have to be the dumbest athletes.