gehringer_2

That's what I would take it to mean - the idea that any team has roughly equal chance to be a good team if it brings a similar level of management skill to the table - that the league set up doesn't have a consistent bias against certain teams - which in the end means all teams should have similar resource bases.

Baseball has the most randomizing inputs that mask team quality and keep winning percentages close. I wouldn't call that the same thing as parity in terms of the ability to win your division occasionally.

A conventional hot water tank will not drain once the pressure is out of the system - they exit from the top. It will just sit there full of water. The only water that will drain once the main is closed is whatever is in the pipes above whatever point he opens. I will usually open a basement faucet and that will let out most of what I don't want running out on me when I open the point I have to work on. This will also keep water from still flowing where you are working in case your main doesn't seal tightly, which is not uncommon in an old house. Best piece of advice is any sink or fixture you do work on, while you are at it get rid of any 'gate' (multiple turn) valves used as local shut offs (like the one you can't turn) and replace with 1/4 turn ball valves. They will still work years later when you need them to. As for the valve you can't turn, Del's advice is good. Use a pair of channel locks and slowly try working it back and forth, slowly breaking up the scale that is binding it. Once you do get it to move, don't expect to get a good shut off until you get it to rotate through it's full range of motion several times. If you can get it move fairly freely you might get a good enough turn off to work on the faucet. But I would still turn off the main and get rid of the old valve when you service the faucet.

Sure. Max was smart enough to know the details of the NPVs well enough - but I don't think he minded that the media comparison made it a lot easier to say he left for a big money difference than all the reasons he was probably irritated with the Tigers that just would have produced more blowback for him to have talked about in public.

and if the AAV is 45M, that means given the devaluation of the deferrals, the contract is actually worth $450M in current dollars. Not nearly so exciting. I remember at the time the Ilitches complained that Scherzer's "$250M" contract offer from WSN was actually not worth any significant amount more than their $140m(? don't remember the exact number) offer because of deferrals but that wasn't stopping anyone from calling them cheap anyway.

Whether the 1st is true or not is the critical difference. If they have to distribute the AAV over the playing years in the deal that is a huge difference - that means they only get around the amount of the tax equal to the time value of money (again and who decides that rate is a big deal also).

The deferred payment is worth less, so they should pay the tax on the 'true' amount - nothing wrong with that. The only joke is on the public, which thinks Ohtani is getting $700M when it may be something more like $450M in constant dollars. And that is actually the biggest question in this - who got to decide what the discount rate applied to the deferred payments is? That number has a very large impact on what the tax charge will be.

I was a child of that era's TV but I never cared much for Lucy's personna on the show either, but it worked to set up the other three cast members so the show overall was OK. For me the female archtype she was clowning off of never worked because the women in my family were so decidedly unlike any of that. So as a child there was no ring of recognition in what she was doing,

Are they wasting his time with his placement?

Interesting - so that also depends on an interest rate assumption. So net present value of the deferrals will be a lot less with interest rate up at 5% than they would have been before the Fed started turning the screws.

The other point goes to Biden, who apparently knows how to President. Tuberville got *nothing* from the admin, that knew they could play a better game of chicken than he could.

so the hope is that by the time he hangs up his cleats, inflation will have devalued the payments owed enough to where they won't create significant luxury tax liability or drag on current payroll - or that the whole CBA will have changed enough to make it all moot. If they still owe him $20M/yr in 25yrs, at 2.5% inflation that only costs them ~$11M in today's dollars. OTOH, if most of the money is 20+yrs out, the contract isn't really worth anywhere near $700M in real terms either. Either way, it's risking a lot on a guess about what the Federal Reserve will do far into the future. Considering that his arm is going into the shop for the second time and he's not been a particularly high average/low K hitter for his career that you'd expect to have a better chance to still be hitting much past 35 it's a bold move for the Dodgers to say the least.

Beck's parting speculation in his story on Chafin was Wentz going to the BP as the 3rd lefty if he doesn't make the rotation. I agree he probably won't make the rotation. Looking at some of his results, it appears that through the course of last season Wentz's steadily lost velo on his FB. If it keeps him from wearing down, maybe working in relief would be the ticket for him but I have my doubts. I remember being impressed by him a couple of times out in '22 but he seemed to regress last season.

My $$ would be that Foley will end up closing. The question is what to do with Lange. A guy who doesn't throw strikes is just as bad in the 8th as the 9th.

Will the luxury tax on Ohtani end up being more than the entire Orioles or A's payroll, or even both?

they who live by the running QB, eventually die by the running QB

It's too bad TT is such an idiot generally because the one saving grace of having a football coach in the Congress is that he was apparently working on some legislation to straighten out the NCAA, though I don't know enough about the details to have any idea if it was progress to just making a bad situation worse. But he has so devalued himself now that even if he had a good idea about something he might not find anyone willing to listen to or work with him.

If you have a power arm, that gets identified pretty early in your career, before you ever have show you have any hitting potential. That will get you to the majors without you ever having any hitting ability in the first place - so practicing it more probably won't get a lot of guys very far. Plus maybe different training methods? Developing a musculature that is optimal for hitting and pitching may not work for many guys.

Maybe. But Mike Ilitch at least was a guy who was a stand-up enough to run a reasonably honest business where he had to learn to pay some level of attention to his customers and there was never a question he loved his city. Gores is an absentee who has apparently worked at building his wealth by screwing anyone he can get a clear shot at and the more powerless they are to complain about it, the better. Hope for comparable concern about his team's fans may need to be tempered. In Gores' case, the only thing that can save the Pistons is his vanity. But maybe that will be enough, eventually

Maybe nefarious would be the wrong word, but it still displays that people as close to Desantis as his SO have a fundamental misunderstanding that elections are not just some kid of carnival cupie doll midway contest to win by any sleight of hand means possible.

think I picked a good one to miss....

We can hope, but be prepared for the worst. WCF owned the Lions for 5 decades of futility. Though at least in the Lion's case under WCF while they were mostly bad they only occasionally terrible.

True - it could be like the ARod contract. IIRC that first big deal of ARod's stood unmatched for years because there just weren't any other 1000 OPS Shortstops.

Doubly ironic in the face of all the RSNs going belly up. On the consumer end its hard to see where more media income growth can come, everyone and his uncle is looking for ways to pare down their home media costs. That is the single biggest piece of what pays sports salaries. Next few years should be interesting.

going to be very hard to turn around a franchise with poor leadership because bad decisions will continue to undercut any progress the players do make. The only way franchises with bad management this bad break through is when they get so much luck they can't screw it up, like drafting a Jokic. Pistons had their shot and Cade is no Jokic.