gehringer_2

I had a sad moment on this topic today. I was listening to young volunteer from a non-profit: "Immigration Law and Justice Michigan" that provide low/no cost aid to people working immigration issues. They have credit size cards made up in several languages for people to carry so they know their rights if/when accosted by ICE. Nice idea in a saner world, but fat lot of good their rights are going to do them when ICE SOP today is basically put a bad over some poor soul's head and hog tie them into the hold of an airplane.

The thing that is so much fun about this team? In 90% of games played, whether we win or lose, we outplay the other team. We've had teams before that relied on brute force offense or just shutdown pitching, and we could win enough - but at the end of the game the highlight plays were usually by the other side. This team virtually always makes the smart play, they execute everything, take every base, they have some top level defenders in Meadows, Green, Dingler, Jake, Baez and the one OF that's not a great fielder does have a great arm. They play great baseball to watch. Now if we could just get Wenceel's baserunning fixed....

I like 7 hits from 3,4,5 much better than the other.

TTBNDS

Cramer only has one hand!?

TBH, I sort of doubt there is such a thing a management taking any professional athlete 'to the woodshed'. This isn't 1950 and the NHL isn't high school sports. He doesn't have to 'take' anything from management he doesn't care to. That's just a reality in modern pro sports. If Larkin has a fracture with the Wings I put the odds of him being back on his feet in another gig before the Wings turn it around as pretty good.

I don't see the trial as even the point. It's a question of whether what we are going to see is just a case of selective prosecution to try to justify the way this guy was denied due process, or whether he was ever high enough on anyone's food chain to merit anything more than ordinary deportation in a sane world. That's why the disposition of the jury matters. There will probably be enough technical violation for a jury to convict if they are disposed to, and given the kind of political polarization, some certainly will be. Whether that will be the same thing as justice being served is an open question.

well he did start out with too high a GB rate. So he has to find the optimum middle ground. This wasn't always his approach, it was a change that got him here, so that at least argues he has the capability to change again.

I think Riley has overcompensated on his fly ball approach and pitchers have found the weaknesses in his extreme uppercut swing. I am going to guess that he is going to have to work his way back to an approach that keeps his bat in the zone longer and lets him cover the outside better. He's pretty locked into the inside of the zone so far this season. There was reporting this spring about how he wanted to look for inside pitches - I think the league knows the answer to that is don't throw it there.....

that's no blanket, that's an afghan.

They don't have to if they get to pick it. Put the trial in a strong anti-immigration venue and dismiss any jurors that may have sympathies. We don't call that a 'fix' in the US, but it's in the ballpark of one.....

yup- Verlander signed for 7 at age 30 and had 6 good years under that deal. But JV is the exception to almost every rule.

we'll see. If this take is correct, he won't be wearing the C for McLellan next season, and/or they will move him. If he's back next season with the 'C' again, then this take will not have aged well.

the jury is still a jury - so a lot will depend on where this trial is held. In the right venue it could easily be a slam dunk for the government.

right. If he had just played young, let them lose, the pipeline, which despite the bad draft luck would still be what it is, which is not bad - or better, and he'd have a lot of money to spend. Yzerman will argue that he's not managing for a one and done trip to the playoffs, but really, that's exactly what he's been doing.

This one probably didn't matter in the overall sweep of things, but Wenceel really needs to stop making bonehead plays on the bases. That's about his 3rd in a week.

how do you get picked off with a man on base in front of you and the tying run not even on deck yet?

well, no time like the present. Team has 6 Ks and 4 of them belong to Riley.

LOL - that should make for interesting jury selection. You can guess there are a lot of people for whom an uncharged employer testifying against an employee would torpedo a case from the get go - so the prosecutors will have to try hard to pick them out.

NBA is down but I don't know if the officiating is any worse than it ever was, most folks think it's the style of play.

really. That will be on big sigh of relief.

this guy's 4 seamer is 92 mph and the Tigers bats are futile. 3,4,5,6 - 0 fer 8

I wonder what direction the true ratio between the size of the population that is the effective pool for players vs the number of players in the majors is going. The league has gone from 14 to 30, the population of the US has grown, and the access to Latin American players has gone up, but the % of US boys playing baseball of any kind is probably way down.

and he's missing a lot of pitches in the zone completely - not even fouling them off. He's pretty much in feast or famine mode right now and I don't think that's his best self.

No arg on the bolded, My comment was aimed more that what seems to be conventional wisdom that you can achieve that with guys that are just going end up fighting and taking penalties, or like Austin Watson. A good forecheck that generates takeaways requires *skill*, and the other side of the coin is guys who either skate well enough or are at least strong enough on the puck to maintain possession in the face of the opponents forecheck. All deficiencies that this team has not addressed for years running.