gehringer_2

Chengelis with a story on Manuel and NIL. Not much concrete info, a lot of 3rd party affiliates of the 'U' patting Warde on the back. Some discussion/focus on business endorsement deals as the long term sustainable path. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2024/02/14/michigan-unveils-new-partnership-to-bolster-nil-operations/72596193007/

Alex Lange to McCosky in today's DetNews: He only threw a 4 seamer 5% of the time (as per statcast) last season. Stands to reason that a breaking ball pitcher that needs to throw his fastball for called strikes might want to increase his 4 seamer use more if he can't keep the sinker in the zone. Like he says - it's not rocket science. It wasn't rocket science last season either but he apparently didn't want to take on making that adjustment on-the-fly mid-season.

MLB TV is available for out of market games at reasonable cost. The problem with MLB TV is that is all it is good for, you can't use it watch your own team unless you are an ex-pat.

There probably are conflict/relationship rules associated with both their appointments, but whether either or both of them violated them is probably not relevant to any prosecutions they were pursuing because there is no intersection to the interest of the defendant. If a cop violates Miranda, or the evidence of an illegal search led to a conviction, then that is misconduct that goes to the the rights of the defendant and does and should poisons the trail and voids a case. How does a conflict in the appointment of a prosecutor impact any particular defendant? Is the arg that Willis would have hired a LESS competent counsel if there had been no (alleged) conflict? That hardly washes. I don't see where Willis critics go with this. I suppose if she is fired it could set back the case - but there must be other people in the office up to speed on the case. Any org has some kind of "Next man up" and all that....

Avila picked a few MLB caliber gloves, gloves - Adames, Suarez, Workman, Paredes - despite Tiger FO reservations has was a positive glove at 3b in Toronto after the trade Mostly they either didn't hit or the got traded because other player like two way players too!

My thought as well. 🍺

Conceivable. The question is whether there are enough 'moderate' GOP members to support this or whether it's more likely the Dems just get one or two blue district GOP members to turn. I may have less confidence there is enough middle left in the House GOP to do consensus government. But either way the GOP middle can't install one of their own without Dem support, so the companion question is can you get the Dems to support a moderate GOP member for speaker or will their calculus be "better to let the chaos reign until the election." We could easily make the mistake of giving the blue party more credit that they will earn when the time comes to choose. Or alternatively, what rules are the GOP middle willing to yield on to get the Dem support they need? It won't, and shouldn't come for free. Still lots of moving pieces on the board.

I think the American interests in opposing a rogue state like Russia in Ukraine are not too hard to see. Maybe the exception to this was Vietnam - I think that one was nearly all on ideological (and self-righteous) grounds - there wasn't much economic or strategic value in VN at the time. Certainly nothing there at the time like the mid-east's oil. I suppose one can argue that our initial concern was driven by concerns about the stability of France's NATO membership but by the late 60's when the war really heated up those issues were off the table and the French public, like most of Europe, was turning against the US prosecution of the war. But even for the most committed proponent of the 'Domino Theory' there was a contradiction at the core of their thinking. If Communism really was an inevitable force and there was no ultimate winning of 'the long twilight struggle', why were we bothering to waste blood and treasure half-way around the world? If we had been half way clear thinking at the time it should have been clear that the way to fight wars of revolution/independence was to work against the economic/political injustices around the world that drove them. But to do that as a general principle would run into vested profit interests - and the circle is closed.

When the House returns Johnson's speakership will collapse over resolution of the impending shutdown. The only question then remaining is whether there are 2-4 GOP reps who have had enough and will throw the speakership to the Dems, or whether we get one more short term, paralyzed, ineffective, speakership between now and the election.

I believe this is it. Obviously we don't have all the medicals, but the some of the reporting has referenced that the kind of shoulder injury Keith had can take a couple years to resolve completely so I get the impression they have not given up on the possibility of him playing 3b permanently, but there may some kind of markers for his arm health they will look for before they risk playing him there.

Cade has exactly 4 made 3s for the month of Feb. which is half over as of tonight.

which I may or may not have just contributed to. Have a text message that is an invitation to a "live presidential tracking poll", whatever that is. Haven't the faintest idea if it is something legit or not. My first take would bot mischief or just another thinly veiled fund raising appeal. Not going to take the time to fine out. Deleted it.

IDK if Vierling is an answer there either. I do know I was pretty thoroughly unimpressed by McKinstry's play at 3rd. IIRC, Ibanez's arm is questionable there. I like Hinch in a lot of area's but the one I don't is that I think he skirts or maybe even crosses the line in holding guys back or playing them out of position to maintain his "optionality" to the point it is probably costing him wins or at least not actually adding any. I think even from a statistical argument, playing the best guys in their best roles most of the time is going get you more wins than being able to very, very, very occasionally win a game on a perfect substitution that ended up being the turn in the game. My date pool suggestion for this season would the date Keith first plays 3b

Yeah - there is a lot of hope that Vierling can hold the fort there when all else fails. I think that is a reasonable possibility but I don't think he has near enough track record there nottp realize that he is anything but a sure thing. That's part of my complaint about the Tigers being so slow to give him more run there last season to find out.

Nobody in the Bally stable is in the same area code as Steve Stone as a baseball broadcaster.

Too much psychic identity tied up in party affiliation for that generation of the GOP. These people are completely immobile psychologically or they already would have switched. Heck, based on their current politics every one of the guys in the Lincoln project should have just changed sides outright by now, and 40yr ago would have, but they don't have the imagination to envision their lives on the other side so they can't pull the trigger. I find it all so bizarre - I could switch parties in a NY minute if the Dems were to go through a transition anything like the GOP has. Heck, I cast any number of GOP votes - mostly in the the pre-Gingrich days.

Right now getting $$ to Ukraine in far more important than either Iraq or Vietnam was at the time, and we saw what administrations did to drive public opinion then. If an administration is not capable of at least using intelligence honestly as an adjunct to set the political conditions for necessary foreign policy, I would say they are incompetent.

To me, Shep's biggest problem was that he never got over his 'starstruck' (obsequiousness?) quality when working with ex-players and that basically ruined things for both of them. I don't see Benetti having that problem so maybe that will help the analysts too.

The threat from Putin is real and too many in the US already underestimate it, but I also have a suspicion that this may be less something new than something that may have metaphorically been in the Admin's back pocket and they and Turner, who is also a Ukraine supporter, have decided that the classification value is not as great as the political value of getting one more threat story from Russia out there into the public domain to put more pressure on the House GOP Putin apologists. And even if my suspicions about the genesis of the story are correct, it's probably the right move.

What those people miss is that that GOP's platform had run out of gas. Reagan was all about the overreach of the welfare state and cutting taxes, but history just simply proved him wrong. Low tax, business friendly Reaganite economic policies rebounded hard against the non-college middle class voters that initially thought they were a good idea and without that piece, that old GOP does not have a majority building platform anymore - they and the set of economic policies that built the Reagan majority are defunct. That's the biggest reason why none of those 12 guys on the stage with Trump in '16 had anything to offer that sounded any better than his snake oil.

Meh - think the headline implies there is some kind of conclusion in the article to a greater degree than there is. It's actually more of an "on the one hand, on the other hand" kind of thing where he tries out all the possible readings. The best nugget is near the end however: Ya think?

Too many goals against.

If the tide does turn this cycle it's already too late for them to get out of the way. The moderate GOP Reps had their chance to be counted when McCarthy fell but decided to cast their fate with Trump and the crazies.

things always look pretty static until they are not, right? There are are tipping point issues in US political history. The new deal for the Dems after the depression, the radical realignment of the South after Nixon leading to the Reagan majorities. We keep looking for some tipping point that will hit the GOP broadly even apart from Trump and it keeps not happening. We will only know it in retrospect - but the combination of the ****-show over immigration and the Russian appeasement are as good a good candidates as any to be that last straws in the public's patience with the GOP.

People have developed a false sense of normal since the 2009 crash. Fed rates may well not go below 3% again and the difference between 5% and 3% in terms of what investments get funded is not that great. We had an anomaly in the ~15 years after the crash. The housing crash let the air out of the balloon and demographic factors led to a long demand drop (the boomer reached the age where they stopped buying much) but as those effects fade I think we are not likely to see the rates of the 2010's come back so my take would be that we are already closer to the new (old) 'normal' than you'd think listening to financial reporting.