gehringer_2

In Baddoo's favor, he's still only 24 this year an is still only at 1000 AB. Not so much in his favor is that it's hard to see any progress or evolution in his hitting over those 1000 AB. I don't how the Tigers will come down on it, but I like Vierling the most of all the guys potentially on bubbles because not only can he play all three OF and 3B, but he has almost zero platoon split - so to me he's their most ideal 'anywhere, anytime' player.

Well, sure if you spell 'reform' "S" "H" "I" "T" "C" "A" "N"

they wouldn't qualify it because it would have made it more difficult to chase down those pesky escaped slaves.

Congrats to your 2nd place Detroit Tigers.

don't see any progression on pitch recognition though. When he came up and we saw how fast his bat was I figured that meant he'd be able to wait on pitches enough to be a good hitter, but not so much so far.

LOL - I was typing almost the identical post. I like to see a rookie be able to come back from his 1st slump, means he was able to make the 1st adjustment he had to. Good omen.

If you'd checked in on this team earlier in the year you might not have thought it was surprising they could take their league, but to have still done it after the core of the early season lineup all went to AAA is cool.

90 rbi for Tork. Extra credit for having done it on a team where nobody can get on base.

This is all Reagan's fault. I say that a bit tongue in cheek but it's also true. There was a kind of virtuous cycle at work in the post WWII era where inflation slowly but constantly pushed people into higher tax brackets, and Congress could righteously - and popularly - vote to lower taxes on a regular basis. The conservatives decided this was bad mechanics and indexed the income tax. But in retrospect that has turned out to be a terrible outcome. Now Congress still feels the political imperative to periodically stroke the voters by cutting taxes, but they have lost the built in restoring force which used to make those cuts constructive rather than destructive. If you look at the old system, there was a certain elegant logic to it. Congress could periodically consider total spending levels, but they could always make the adjustment by controlling how much they cut taxes. They never had to raise them. The situation we are in now leads to bad economic policy because rate increases are politically too difficult, but of course in any sane world they are periodically required to correct excess mistakes made on the cutting side or just ordinary changes in the economy. Tax politics in the US have basically be in chaos from the time the income tax was indexed.

Team discipline didn't improve either - always too many penalties. Part of that was still not really having good enough players, but part of it was low detail emphasis coaching.

The attraction of the screen also depends on your reading of the opponent D. Are they in a mode where they are gambling or likely to get caught over pursuing, or are they playing straight-up/stay at home where you just like other plays better?

He's got a point there.

AOC had it right the other day. When you do shotgun economic sanctions against a Western Hemisphere country, you are doing a self-own in terms of solving your immigration issues.

the bonus is that the drug stores, Medicare and Moderna still haven't established a reimbursement schedule, so they told the wife that it may a while before the billing paperwork came through, and when it did it would list the date of her vax as sometime after the the pricing is fixed but the vax card registration date turned in will be correct.... What a country!

Don't hold your breath on this one, that plant will get built. LiFePO4 has too much potential and to keep paying the Chinese to make it there is worse than giving them a cut to make it here.

I have to admit, it's not as bad as I though it might be. He hasn't been very productive, but he hasn't been the catastrophe I feared he would - other than April. Since May 1 he's manage a 680 OPS, which on this team meant he wasn't really playing at the expense of a better player, at least on the current roster. That not to say had he not been here maybe Malloy gets called up, but that's a slightly different argument. Of course it still would have been far nicer to have a team good enough that carrying him all year would have been a more controversial decision! I remember when US players 1st started going back and forth to Japan they faced some culture shock over the fact that there were issues of decorum in Japanese baseball that were more important to the Japanese than winning and losing, and American players who missed the message were likely not to be appreciated. Now the traditional cut throat American teams that often threw Hall of Famers overboard at the ends of their careers, have their own issues that transcend winning and losing but it's about money, contracts and marketing rather than decorum.

this is more about the UAW than China. Ford is just reminding TPTB of the loyal opposition that they can take their ball and go home anytime.

Can we at least get MTG on aiding and abetting a felony?

now 9-6 Erie going into the bottom of the 9th. Tyler Mattison in his 2nd inning of work. EDIT: Mattison nails it down with 2 Ks and fly out after a lead off single..

SO got hers today but had been pushed back a week twice waiting for the supply to arrive.

Football is over managed today. There was a time an experienced QB would have brought his team to the line, audibled a quick pass and gotten the 1st of his *4* chances done inside 7 seconds and if it went incomplete the miss stops the clock with 3 downs left. In the end I don't really think it's a better game for every decision having to be mulled over between the sideline and the press box. I think it's actually sort of comic they pay QBs 40M/yr to be in total command of an offense and treat then them like football children. Nothing would be more time efficient when time is of the essence than just letting the QB call the play in that situation.

A little. As you point out, it's a big power slump but not a huge 'making a lot of outs' slump. So he's got an adjustment to make but it doesn't seem pitchers have figured him out to where he's consistently over matched. His walk rate has definitely fallen, which has driven his OBP down. Could be he's fallen a little into the HR swing trap. Like Magglio said - try to do too much, you might not do too much.

I would pray for a major fan revolt if all those guys are brought back. I'd even help lead it.

Lynn already has Torkelson traded before any of the guys he has lined up to replace him have hit their first MLB HR, let alone 30 in a season. I think it's nice that he has the ambition to cover the Tiger minor leagues - and I doubt the News is paying him much to do it, but his writing has become caricature, both content and style wise.