gehringer_2

The other thing is the pacing. They play a faster game when Ivey has the ball. Aside from all scheme and strategy differences, faster gives the other team less time to do whatever they are trying to do. I don't know how you keep that pace with the ball in Cade's hands, he just doesn't move at Ivey's speed. Now if the Pistons were an all 'round precision kind of team, maybe they can break down other teams without the speed, but right now I think the speed helps. And so it goes back to whether the FO actually has some kind of consistent vision of what kind of team they are trying to build and a workable plan how to get there.

as long as NIL is the thing, a single big donor is going to be able have a big impact - which is one of the reasons that at any given time, most the teams want to see the NIL system end in favor of something they can better control. But even with big donors, most want themselves memorialized, and NIL is an ephemera - it's paid and gone; there is no remembrance, so I think the number of guys doing what Knight is doing is probably going to fall as the novelty wears off.

True - Cade can get hemmed in as the primary ball carrier. Once that happens nothing good often happens.

Could well be. Ivey certainly not likely to produce like this in a game *with* Cade in the current set-up. But by the next time they play they will have shuffled a bunch of pieces so maybe the whole set-up changes.

Development is great, but is that a sustainable advantage? I don't see any built in reason to say M is likely to stay better at it than their competition. It seem like just a passing property of a particular coaching staff, and coaching staffs turn over pretty fast.

Neither Vierling nor Ibanez may be able to hold down 3rd on a regular basis - it's yet to be determined. We may yet see Vierling back in an OF corner, Ibanez at 2nd and Keith at 3rd - esp maybe later in the season if Keith's arm is trending positive. Or even Kreidler if he finds any hit.

It's all about the money Buddha. And under NIL the U can't even spend its own money on the athletes - that's the absurdity of if. It's not like the Regents can put $20M in a pot (even if they wanted to) that the coaches can dole out, they have go through the dog and pony show of paying more people in development to go out and rustle up outside donors of those funds. It's pretty clear why and OSU or Alabama is already better at doing that. Plus the State of Michigan isn't silicon valley - the business $ pool in MI is a lot thinner here than it used to be in the glory days of the big three. But it's even more than that. Even under direct payments - which are probably coming, the 'U' is going to make a calculation about whether they get a real return on the money they put out or not. If they get just as much ticket and media revenue at 9-4 with little prospect of winning another championship but without spending another $20-30M as they do with top recruiting teams and the occasional trip to the playoff, don't expect them to value wins over dollars. That's the real "Michigan Difference" - that they their eye firmly on the bottom line. Maybe Ono is a big enough sports fan that could shift, but that has been the real tradition. They will only play to win if it's profitable. It may be but under the current system it may also not be.

If I were forecasting it, I'd wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see Lipcius or Sands at all, and I think Ibanez will play more than McKinstry and Jake will get >400 AB,

well, that's one version of Congressional Collegiality.

Casey Mize asking "What am I? Chopped liver?" The Tigers are so young that other than Canha and Baez all the other likely regular position player are still on the upward performance part of their career arc, as opposed to being on the downside. That's going to be a source of greater uncertainty in projection.

I don't have a problem with it. You are basically talking about what Michael Gerson coined as 'the soft bigotry of low expectation" style of liberal side racism.

The thing that is so weird to me is that back in pre-crazy times - I'm talking probably pre Gingrich, if a party had double crossed one of it's members as badly as the GOP has screwed Lankford, that would likely have driven a party switch. And that is the mechanism that did a lot to keep party radicals, which have always been around at the edges, from ever having much leverage - the fact that they could drive members to the other side. But we have this weird 'two completely different worlds' thing going now, where a GOP Senator cannot even construct a conceptual idea of himself in the other party, despite probably being in every other way from an identical culture in terms of wealth, education, lifestyle.

could be. Or could be she thinks she's now notable enough in her own right she doesn't have to advertise that she's a Ford to get people's attention?

So here is the argument to back off and just let Javy be Javy: He has put up an OPS greater than 800 three times in his career, he's averaged 170 Ks in those three seasons. IOW, the argument would be that Javy is his best self when he is swinging away with abandon and in *his* career there is zero evidence that he is better when he Ks less. But clearly, any fool can see he would be a better hitter if he were more selective and shorter to the ball. So what is the right answer?

It is silly that baseball has definitions that don't line up.

It won't help, but if Javy has the same season he had last yr (0.6 WAR) it's not going to be fatal by itself. The last time the Tigers went to the WS it was with only 1.1 WAR at shortstop (Peralta). And if he's any worse he'll likely be benched.

IDK about that last one. It's been sounding like he must be close to hiring a Soviet ex-pat video tech to start erasing Melania from past photos.....

I see a lot of upside surprise potential with the position players, way above average injury risk with the pitching staff, so yeah - they could end up anywhere.

Correct, he's not getting embryonic cells in his graft, but all the Science is one knowledge base. They probably wouldn't know how to make his autologous graft work without all the companion science that's been developed.

Well, if they kill him to get his vote, that will just put them one closer to losing the rest of them for the remainder of the session. 🤷‍♂️

A stem cell transplant could lay him pretty low for a while. BTW, I wonder how many times in his career he's voted against the stem-cell research that is now giving him his main chance to keep living?

I can't keep track of the various wireless protocols without a scorecard, but check the link below. The 1gbps is the rate capability at the router. You should get that on any CAT6 wired connection. 287bps is the protocol limit for 40mHz bandwidth single receiving antenna wireless at 2.4gHz under 802.11ax, which based on the rate you have appears to be how your phone is linking to the router. I've seen my wireless on the my newest laptop (early 2023 - non 6E) hit 600mbps but it's not very often, (that's 80 mHz bandwidth at 5 gHz/ 802.11AC). I get 400bps most of the time which is 802.11ac 40mHz bandwidth at 2.4gHz. You won't likely get a 5 gHz connection if there is more than one wall of any substance between you and the router. At 5gHz things are getting to be pretty much line-of-sight. If you believe your phone can go faster, then check to see if the 'AC' or maybe "6E" or maybe 'mimo" wireless protocols are enabled on the router's wireless settings. You may also need to be using WPA3 security to get an 'AC' connection but I'm unclear on that one way or the other. https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000005725/wireless/legacy-intel-wireless-products.html

It's Irene Dunne, oft paired opposite Cary Grant in his younger days in movies I saw too many years ago to remember. So what brought her remembrance to your interest?

so if the NYT article has any truth to it, one of Trump's complaints about Rona is that she isn't making a big enough effort (as in spend more money) on election security issues. So if he puts someone in charge that will waste more resources on that wild goose chase, that's less resource for their candidates. Sounds good to me.

The reporting at NYT is he wants Michael Whatley - a big supporter of his in S. Carolina. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/us/politics/ronna-mcdaniel-rnc-trump.html