gehringer_2

It's been pointed out here already by multiple posters, this case has morphed beyond being about about Skubal and the Tigers in particular, it's about Boras and the Union wanting the arb scales reset and ownership wanting the status quo system of arbitration escalation 'rules'. And as has been pointed out, the Tigers didn't particularly 'low ball' Skubal, they made an offer than pretty much followed arbitration precedent. For Boras, repping clients that score bigger in arbitration is probably the area of biggest potential income growth for his business if he can get 'market value' established as a significant factor in future arb awards. Skubal, as a player rep, can contribute to something that will benefit a lot more players than the deal he signs next year. OTOH, to mid market and below teams, a big escalation in arb costs would be the last straw in making them all 2nd class citizens to NY and LA as they will end up having to cut lose a lot of competitive players they would otherwise have kept.

OTOH, if the Tigers are not willing to dig into the couch cushions to find $10M for one year to keep together a potential WS staff, then what are we all here for?

Olson is going to win a rotation spot based on being able to get guys out better than anyone other than Skubal. The question is can he keep it.

The fact that they just committed 38.5AAV to Valdez means an extra $10M could become more significant. But who knows?

at one point she announced she would not run for Gov of CA but I sure hope she does and doesn't declare for the White House. IMHO, any Dem who has managed to lose to Trump should not be trying again.

SGL has to prove he can get out big league hitters.

I could see this. I think the real argument is going to be between the two sets of owners, the players union is just going to be along for the ride.

idle talk this afternoon on radio that losing the arb case would motivate the Tiger to move Skubal to they would have the money to add enough to counter his loss. I'm just the messenger here.....

Trump isn't stupid, but he is ignorant. We tend to assume the later always implies the former, but not with Trump. Trump is ignorant because not because he is stupid but because he has a closed mind. Snapped shut somewhere around 1972 and he's still there.

this was the only decision the court could reach after Tx, but it's still both tragic and a tribute to the ability of lawyers to lose the forest for the trees that we have a Supreme court that thinks redistricting is OK if it's purely to manipulate election results instead of seeing it as the clear violation of one-man/one-vote that it is.

Bezos is making the same mistake at the Post that he is making at Blue Origin, which is trying to run them like Amazon. At Amazon - the bulk of the workforce are commodity. Amazon doesn't need them for who they are, it really does only need their bodies. While that management system - as bad as it is, may work there, isn't going to work for journalism or high tech manufacturing, because those are places where you do need people exactly for who they are - which means that while you can can get away with pitting workers against each other in a warehouse, you cannot in a fundamentally collegial place like a newsroom or a necessarily deeply cooperative one like cutting edge engineering (he has a forced attrition program in place at Blue Origin). Your develop process is going to grind to a halt when every engineer is trying to steal every other guys glory and no-one trusts or will share anything with anyone. Jacques Nasser pretty well proved this at FoMoCo years ago, but the guys like Bezos just don't want to believe it because their ego doesn't let them admit they don't have the only brain that matters.

and why should we even take any of this lying-whenever-their-lips-are-moving admin's numbers at face value?

The conventional wisdom on this has run a bit past the actual numbers. The East is a grand total of 9 games under 500 to the west after about 300 interdivisional games. That's a little more than 1/2 loss per team or about a 48/52 winning percentage split.

I don't know if it's still possible to vote our way out, but for damn sure we voted our way in.

Ausar ended up on Jokic on the Nuggets 2nd to last possession and he just took it to the hoop like Ausar wasn't even there. Good Peter Principle example.

how many hundred years ago did Adam Smith describe the "tragedy of the commons"?

A couple of things I noted. I thought it reinforced that the org was moving too slow because they wanted to give people a chance to get with the new program instead of just cleaning house. The other thing fans should hear was the bit about how teams have to certify to the commissioners office that they have the revenue, not just the assets, to cover the expenses they've taken on. And maybe thirdly that under the ilitches, they don't budget for what they decide to sign, they sign up to what they've already budgeted.

"We have met the enemy, and He is Us." --Pogo, 1972

Yup. It's should be pretty obvious to anyone who has their eyes open, but the population is economically illiterate. The idea that capitalism is a real thing with moving parts and good and bad properties and sets of predictable outcomes is miles over the head of the average American who is conditioned to never think about these things in more than misty 10sec slogan sound bites. And there are billions of dollars being spent in every political cycle to create enough confusion to make sure the public stays just as ignorant as it is now. So we reach a point where even Joe 6 pack has realized the system is failing him, but he doesn't know why or how or what should be done about it. So you end up with a lot of very mad but very gullible voters.

capitalism is inherently concentrative. You can always make better investments when you can make bigger investments and capital will always concentrate. That's a feature. So if you don't want to end up in a banana republic, you need to support strongly progressive taxation and robust government expenditure on human investment and inheritance taxes. This is not a matter of political philosophy, it's a matter of economic reality. Of course, it is also one that the rich do their damndest to obfuscate by casting it wrongly as a matter of free market philosophy and personal liberty, and at that they have been extremely successful since 1980.

can't easily sculpt a ball in mid air though. Maybe if you put it all in a big magnetic field.....

or that they all even agree on whether they want to play together. (Sttrangely enough I've been rereading The Brothers Karamazov, so I'm in a mode to question all fraternal claims....😉)

They're just thinking ahead. It will make perfect sense when the NFL has gone to 24 games and the Superbowl is in April. SPTTINSTATMF (somepeoplethinkthereisnosuchthingastoomuchfootball)

but that's the other twist here. Lets say the Devils look like they aren't going to be very good going forward and you are the team that signs Quinn to a 6 or 7 yr deal. Is he then going to spend all his energy lobbying you to bring in his bros from NJ as their contracts expire? Is that going to be good for your team? Are you going to do it even if if isn't to keep your star happy? It's all speculation but it's just another thing that needs to at least be in the back of your mind if you decide to deal with a guy with siblings in the league who has already said he wants to play with them.

are they up against the salary minimum?