gehringer_2

I don't know what ratings are doing compared to previous years, but improving the quality of the TV broadcast is also important and they just are not there yet. Benetti is big step up from Shepherd but the quality is still very uneven. He needs to settle it down a few notches. Audio production has been bad, the revolving door in the 2nd seat is still bad. Petry is improving as he works more - he is their most insightful guy - his delivery is improving but could still improve a lot more. His talent for pronouncing "Change-up" as a three syllable word is also unique. But the rest of the bally work is atrocious - Kane, Thompson, Kerwin are all cringe worthy. And there is rot at the heart of the whole Bally "make it more interesting with outside stuff" approach, which is that by constantly ignoring the game action, they are sending the fans a signal loud and clear that the game is not actually worth watching. You don't persuade people the game is worth their time with that approach. You will never see an NFL broadcast where they deliberately cut away during a play. If the broadcasters don't validate the importance of the game by paying full attention to it, you are telling the fans not to either. The have the technology to do split screen and they won't even do that. Benetti actually blew off criticism for cutting away during play in a recent broadcast. I hope that is because he has to be a team player and not because he believes it.

84 would put them half way to winning 90 next season. Would we expect at least as much improvement '24 to '25 as we got from '23 to '24? The RH hitters needed are not in the system, going to have to sign one - or two or make a trade. And they need Flaherty V2.0 - with a multiyear contract this time. A another LH bullpen arm. That not an unreasonable lift for an off-season.

Yeah - to win a game against a great QB with rookie corners bodes pretty well for the future. Of course they made mistakes, buts it's the NFL; to play well enough to win 1st time out against that competition is actually pretty big.

IDK - it depends if there is some limit to how much payroll the Dodgers can rack up or not. They owe a tonne of money to a bunch of guys already. Plus they can already count 5 starters if guys are healthy:. Yamamoto, Kershaw, Glasgow, Stone, Ohtani. I suppose Kershaw could retire.

Agree. Certainly from A^2 if you work until 5 the difference between 6:40 and 7:10 is all the difference in the world in terms of getting there being so much stress you don't enjoy it. Just don't see what the point of the earlier start time is with 40+ minutes shaved off what a typical game used to be when they were starting at 7:10. True A^2 may be near the limit of the in person market, but the Tigers have to know well enough that most of their attendees are coming from somewhere outside the city limits.

Questions with: Good answers: Greene, Keith, Meadows, Vierling, Olson, Holton, Skubal, Foley (maybe not your closer but solid), Vest, Carpenter (that's 40% of a 26 man roster solidly in place) Answer is meh but will be on next yrs 26: Rogers (calls great game, still can't hit), McKinstry (actually turning out pretty good for utility, but still utility). Gets you to 46% of a roster Answer is meh but may or may not make next yrs 26: Brieske, Faedo, W. Perez (5th OF on a 4 OF team) Answer probably no: Malloy, Baez (should just be no but there is a slim chance he'll be better if he recovers well) Answer is no: Miller, Wentz (already gone), Kriedler, Baddoo, Manning, Lange Still can't answer: Mize, Montero, Tork (but not trending well), Dingler, SGL, Possible yesses but SSS is too small: Sammons, Yung, Hanifee,Madden, Hurter, Sweeney. odds and ends: Maeda will play out his deal as a swing guy

It's 95% because they are bad, but this is also probably a disadvantage of the cobbled together pitching staff with only one established starter. Game day sales are going to be better if you have listed a good starter that people are familiar with going as compared to a bullpen day or Kenta Maeda. Copa is also a pretty terrible place on a hot sunny day and we have had a lot of those this summer. Lack of shade over the stands was the bad design choice that's going to just keep on giving.

LOL - player in all blues, standing in front of the post with a big blue wrap on it, in a blue endzone. Yeah - not real hard to lose sight of! Home field advantage.

You wonder if being in such a tight race all season long they way they have been with the Yankees is actually more mentally fatiguing for a team than making a late charge.

Team has played well enough over the last couple of months that 11 of the remaining 18 would be my baseline expectation. If they can steal an extra 2 or 3 more than that, it should get very interesting.

Is your median politician a mean politician, or are some of them nice guys?

This is true, but it's become a distinction without a difference given that all most all major spending bills in recent history emerge in the end from a House/Senate conference committee. The House can start a bill to fund DC dog catchers and it can turn into the annual omnibus appropriation bill by the time all is said and done.

Along those lines, maybe the best thing that could happen if he gets re-elected is for him to be diagnosed with a moderately slowly developing form of cancer. NIH would see its funding go through the roof.

BTW from the department of stupid scale numbers: A 50 basis pt reduction in interest rates reduces the government's cost of debt service by half a billion dollars per day .

really good point. I can't tell you how many engineering database systems I've seen full of landmines because the data mining of the original sources made errors. Always tried to get access to original data to see what the data concatenator was really doing.

actually the price that matter most of all is gasoline, and from what I've read of what's going on in OPEC right now there is a fighting chance gasoline is going to be below $3.25 this fall. That won't hurt.

Burned out for the day with the Michigan butt kicking. I'll watch this one after the fact if they win....

we don't know what limitations were or were not made on the resources made available. No sense to go shopping if your spending account isn't up to it. I'll let Buddha accuse me of being cynical again () but think about it: If you are Michigan, coming off the NC you have sold every ticket you have, peddled every piece of merch you could think of, why spend money this year on players - your profits are already booked. Save it and make a bigger splash next yr or when you sense ticket sales may be looking weaker. Until some new rules are in place it's all year by year now with players anyway. The institution has a much longer-term view about sports than the fans. Manuel's primary task is long term economic success. Winning alone isn't justification for spending any money that isn't going to have a net return.

Yeah - when I say you can't have him in the lineup in Det if he doesn't produce that doesn't mean they necessarily have to move him, but the comments above about his low trade value are spot on. Still, if he gets sent to AAA again his chances of a career in Det are probably over because they will have filled his spot with someone else.

Speaking of the Gen X'ers. In the life cycle arc, they are at the age of maximum economic conservatism so in general would be moving toward the most anti-tax platforms. But here I think Trump is making a big mistake with his tariff talk, because that is basically a break all the china and re-arrange it proposal and thus is going to run counter the economic conservatism of his natural constituencies. They hate taxes but they are also most afraid of change that might upset their apple carts. Could be one reason the Ds are closing the gap on the 'Who do you trust on the economy' question.

The thing that amazes me is that I'm still seeing some writers who think high turnout will benefit Trump more. That just feels so counter-factual I can't buy it. On the D side you may be pulling traditionally under voted parts of the population into the voting process in minority women, Hispanics and young voters, plus the general 4 yr demographic shift. Who could Trump possibly be pulling in who he didn't already have? What deep repository of White Males would suddenly be more energized about him than when he 1st hit the scene and why? The GenX'ers suddenly becoming more radically GOP? I don't think there is any reasonable answer to that question.

well. they did score a TD. Warren isn't even their biggest problem.

I think the answer is none. It doesn't change anything your are doing and you don't really even need to acknowledge it in particular other than making the general observation that Trump has lost support from people in both his own and previous GOP admins. If you are asked about Richard Cheney in particular you just say, "We have a lot of disagreements with him but if he has moved in our direction wrt Trump, that is one less."

I hope you are right and I'd love to believe it, but a blowout record election turn-out for this country is 150 Million votes. While I agree there are indeed many millions who are not paying attention, I'm afraid they are just going to continue to not pay attention because half of American's just don't vote, and that's who that half are. Harris is bringing a lot of new young voters and charged up women in, they are already paying attention and registering now. Best hope is that that is something the polling is largely missing because those kinds of model adjustments probably are not often done on the fly - only after the cycle.

If he can stay healthy and get consistent starts maybe his command will finally get good. He'll get to maybe 115 IP (including Toledo). i wonder if that will be considered enough that he won't be under any innings limitation next season.