gehringer_2

I don't mind Congress Critters being well paid - there are a lot of places in the Country where $250K is not great shakes for a professional. But the payback ought to be tighter financial ethics rules and an end to private money campaign finance slush funds. I know - dream on.....

I'm not so naive to think bad people can't pursue beneficial political policies (often accidental to some other not so beneficial objective!) and vice versa, but to anyone who supports Trump *because* they think he is some kind of latter day Christian Paladin, I would say you are deluded.

Costs of services keep going up because wages are at the bottom end are rising, which at least is a good thing for those folks. If any large number of undocumented are expelled that will only increase upward pressure on entry level service salaries, so I'd expect the trend to continue. The 25 basis points probably won't have much effect on any of that either way. Interest rates have more effect on the capital intensive parts of the economy but services tend to be low cap. I'd like to see the Fed unwind more of their balance sheet, which is also a deflationary tactic, but since doing more of that puts pressure on bank profits I'm not holding my breath.

But we don't own the threads we post in or even the subtopics within. When someone adds another issue to a thread that's their option (up to the limits of the moderation) and the OP doesn't need to feel obligated to defend or police any subsequent direction the discussion goes. You questioned the logic, Rob said why he thought it was appropriate and on we go.

More of it if they get Flaherty!

I suppose all one can do is hope that if these people actually start looking into things with a little energy they may learn something about how ignorant they are currently are, but that's probably expecting too much. (this is actually the real reason that people on the outside complain that the bureaucracy 'captures' people - it's generally because once on the inside one-time bomb throwers learn they didn't understand how things really work.)

I'd argue the Tiger's current state is way beyond 'Pre-Pudge' but be that as it may, the more basic argument that Mid-American cities are not the 1st choice of free agents remains, regardless of whether the teams are good or not - simply because the secondary revenue potential is lower. Objectively, the team that starts the season in '25 is going to look a lot more like the team that finished by playing 600 ball for 2 1/2 months than the team that stumbled out of the gate in '24 so I don't know how much more ready they will ever be.

It is a paradox, dilemma, whatever. Those Churches that in theory would have the moral authority to be critical of their brethren mostly aren't, because it's not the kind of thing they do, exactly because they are what they are. But non-evangelical US Christianity could use some kind of re-brand to distinguish itself from the politicos.

The Torah is a pretty frightening thing to read carefully. I'd actually call it schizophrenic - there is the first glimmering of NT/SOTM theology in there, but it struggles to emerge from the scorched earth, vengeance laden, 'kill 'em all' bronze age ethos that mostly predominates.

LOL - well, the religious aren't doing a very good job of it so somebody has to.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/43026688/mlb-study-identifies-factors-rise-pitching-injuries Nothing too surprising here, but good that they are trying to get a better handle on what is going on. It does make you wonder/worry about Skubal though. JV could hit triple digits and he's had a long career, but JV would mostly build up to it during a game, or show it here and there. He used to add and subtract from his FB a lot so he wasn't always throwing pedal to the metal all the time. I think if Skubal expects to pitch for very long he benefit from learning to do the same.

The key is 'reasonable.' Will there be any reasonable deals signed or the do the rich clubs have so much revenue that any player with more than a pulse gets silly dollars and years?

he does have an awesomely quick bat, which is probably what led the Tigers to think he had the potential to be a better hitter, but getting the quick bat on the ball has been a problem 😥. If he was a good defender, it would help his cause, but he's not and his arm is unreliable at best. He is another guy whose MiLB OPS is padded by a good walk rate, but walk rates always fall off on the transition to the majors. Baddoo's walk rate in Det was good (~10%) but still a drop from his MiLB rate (~15%). As this org looks for guys who walk more (e.g. JHM) we need to be aware of how much MiLB walks are contributing to a guy's MiLB OPS before we get too excited about them.

Indeed, this season will tell, but TBH, Mize at his best has never shown the kind of stuff that Jack has, so if Mize is figuring into a decision about Flaherty they better be confident he's going to do something more than he's ever done before. Big guys with power arms will get a lot of chances, but sometimes they are just Buck Farmer.

Sounds like epic family dysfunction, and then dad deciding the shooting range would be a good bonding place.....

I believe this is correct. Conversely, if a player clears waivers and ends up on another team, then that team only owes him the minimum and his old team is on the hook for any balance on his contract beyond that.

I suppose same way football has always survived title IX. Hasn't there always been recognition that the 'revenue' sports have the right to first call on their revenue? But this is going create some interesting re-alignments. In the current system football revenue doesn't go directly to all the athletes on campus - in fact doesn't go to any of them directly - yet., but it supports all their facilities and coaching. In the 'old' NIL system, it was all outside money that was just being passed through to the marketable athletes. But fund raising for NIL was also unsustainable, exhausting for the fund raisers, and an arms race with no end game. Divert $20M of regular sports revenue into direct payment to students, and those students do better personally, but that money is now coming out of the the pool that use to go to program and facilities budgets. Richer swimmers - older swimming pools.....?

if the US Federal courts signs off, they can do pretty much whatever they want! You can't take the court to court except to appeal it up, and I could see this as not being the kind of case an appeals court or the SCOTUS is very interested in taking.

Afternoon radio guys say Flaherty back to the Tigers is in play. Here's hoping.

the level of duress teams are under does vary. If a team is in a position where they know their window is closing the relatively value of those two years maybe a lot higher than for a team that has confidence it still has a lot of pieces in its system to keep adding. As long as owners are rich guys with opinions there is always a possibility one wants what you have enough to make it worth your while. No guarantee, but you should always keep the antenna up.

True, The Tigers could offer him 7@35M starting this season, which has (at 3%/yr discount) an NPV of $218M. If he got 8 yrs at $35M two years from now the NPV is $230M. $12M is actually a pretty small insurance premium to pay against a pitching injury in 2 seasons. Problem is, Boras doesn't look at it that way.

Indeed, there is very little a team can do with a player committed to going to FA other than make the best deal they can to recover value or ride it out and take the comp pick when it comes. Players and agents will always say the right things so the fans don't start booing the player whose made it clear to team management they are committed to going FA, but none of it means squat. It's just one more thing management has to deal with. If you want to win long term, you have to do what you judge will minimize the impact of player decisions you can't control.

for good or ill, no developed country in the world today will deliberately operate their central banking system to produce deflation. It just isn't going to happen, because every central banker in the world today believes deflation is far more dangerous to an economy than any impact of any typical inflation. Again, a very plain simple fact of which most Americans are ignorant because; politicians find it more convenient to lie and obfuscate than just explain/admit the facts, and the (vast majority of the) media is economically illiterate.

that's great. let see what he actually does. Trump's typical MO is talk up a real problem and then do something that makes it worse.

Boras is really pushing the Detroit angle for Bregman and the USA Today story by Nightengale reprinted in the Freep is enough for good laugh - did you know Detroit has the inside track on Bregman because he went to school with the Tiger's bullpen catcher? Who knew?