gehringer_2

I don't have occasion to watch the Bears, but even a team with a bad o-line will occasionally play a team with a bad D-line and in those games a QB like Field whose offense is constrained by poor line play should be able to put up a performance that gives you some hint into what he might be able to do if he had time on a more regular basis. Has Fields been able to do that?

Does that mean to the point the Tigers wouldn't sign him if he was willing or just that they won't go out of their way to if they can spend comparable (or less) money on comparable value elsewhere? Otherwise, probably all we can say about Eduardo is that Eduardo is gonna do Eduardo and if it doesn't make too much sense to anyone else, too bad.

Yup - definitely can be a problem for guys that rocket through college/lower levels based on swings at out of zone breaking balls that MLB hitters will mostly let go by. And it's hard to get guys to work on throwing strikes with breaking balls when they know they don't need to against the guys they are facing.

Robin Yount split his career between CF and SS, won a gold glove at one, silvers sluggers at both, an MVP at both positions, and got himself to the HOF. No slouch there.

To me there is no downside to players being *able* to play multiple positions, the downside is when players are moved around so much you never get to a point where you have a cohesive defensive unit where everyone knows everyone else's tendencies, you stop getting communication breakdown misplays, and OF's get a chance to learn the field details at all the ball parks they have to play in. I believe there is a cross over point of decreasing returns where the search for the last marginal offensive advantage becomes counterproductive for these reasons.

Their off-season todo list isn't that bad this time. They have to sign or replace ERod, and a second arm would be nice. I think I might like to see Holton compete for a back end starting job which would let them look more for relief help - esp since Alexander and Faedo both can fill the long relief role. Torkelson, Greene and Carpenter have emerged as bona fide MLB hitters, that puts them 3 bodies ahead of where they were coming into 2023. If at least one more out of the group of Meadows, Malloy, Keith, Perez, Bigbie end up as legitimate bats, that puts them 2 hitters away from a better team than the Twins or anyone else in the Central can field. One starter, one starter/reliever, and two hitters in one off-season should not be a bar too high for a front office with virtually zero existing payroll constraints.

Analysts always love physical talent and Fields has that in wretched excess. Too bad for him QB is actually played mostly between the ears.

The assumption here is that management cares, hard to see how they do considering the already stunning wastage rates for pitchers and total lack of any institutional response from baseball to date. Coming from a heavy industry background I like to joke that if OSHA regulated baseball, pitching would have been outlawed decades ago. It's jest yet it's true that pitchers suffer predictable rates of injury that would be completely unacceptable in any normal workplace. And while many of them do get 10s or 100s of millions of $$ in ransom for their UCL's, many who suffer those injuries without ever reaching the majors don't.

SGL is one of those guys who, when he is on, make you wonder how he isn't already an all-star, yet whose overall body of work looks pretty mundane. Like a lot of guys who depend on being able to command an inventory of off-speed pitches, when he is good, he is very good, but consistency remains elusive. Sometime as these guy get older and log more innings, the consistency improves to were there they can have good MLB careers, but for just as many or more it never happens.

Yes and no. Their are sure to be completely unknown energy storage technologies out there just waiting for their discovery, but with respect to the device we call a 'battery', it's going to be hard to top Lithium for energy/lb unless we also get a new periodic table of the elements, which might well exist on the other side of whatever black hole our part of the universe is fated to eventually get sucked though, should anyone want to get there. 💥✨

I have no agenda in saying this, just the personal observation that it's is pretty weird how if you hang around long enough, everything that goes around, comes around again. In the 1950-1960s, tons of big orgs of all kinds had various kinds of non-fraternization rules of varying strictness. Every teacher and students were expected to remain perfect strangers. By round about 1980 people were supposedly chafing under the injustice being done to consulting adults who just happened to work for the same company or institution, and "lover the one your with" and all that, and down came all the barriers of all kinds. The Roman Polanskis of the world rejoiced. Fast forward another 30 yrs, and the very idea of 'consulting adult' is considered a facist construct and individual agency a myth in a world of implacable institutional power. (yes I'm being hyperbolic for fun here). The rebound of course isn't back to exactly the image of the prior status quo, but there is a certain template to it all that make it amusing to me.

To me the logic is faulty. If Fulmer had been all that, he would have been the first piece of the rebuild, still in his prime when they should have been ready to content again - which would have been about now, so why on earth would you trade him? OTOH, if he already established that he was fragile and had a flat fastball, you weren't going to get the moon for him.

Makes you wonder if MSU was hoping to negotiate some kind of settlement to make this go away. If so probably a pointless exercise but the kind of decision I can imagine would not have been unlikely.

If nothing else he needs to learn to eat the ball when there is no play. Risking putting a man a second with an attempted hero throw that has no chance to being with is not good baseball.

Lithium is not rare, but some of what is out there is harder to utilize. This will be a case where the least expensive to recover deposits will end up driving the others out of business, and even if you think you've found a low cost to recover source, it's hard to be sure you won't be undercut later because we are so early on the learning curve. No-one has spent a lot of time looking for lithium yet so I would expect more reports like this one are yet to come. WyandotteChem/BASF had a good business for decades making Soda Ash downriver in Wyandotte, by what was then the standard process, then someone stumbles across a natural deposit in Wyoming that needs almost no processing. Bye-Bye to a large chemical works. In the natural resource business, sh*t happens.

Of course you can never have to much pitching, but my guess is that they won't budget much for a 2nd starter signing (though I won't complain if they do!) because they expect Mize to be effective and no team wants to put 9 figures into a 6th starter. Turnbull's ambiguous status also adds to the uncertainty in the mix - if they part company with him in the off season you would think that would increase the chances they'd be willing spend for two starters.

in the early part of the season the Tigers were near the bottom in both runs scored and runs allowed. Runs allowed has improved quite a bit with ERod, Skubal, Manning, Olson pitching well and generally decent defensive play other than 3b, but run scoring has remained mired near worst in baseball. They should try to retain or replace ERod with at least comparable talent, but even if Keith and Malloy are both the real deal as MLB hitters they could yet add another hitter or two and still struggle to get to get to 750 runs

In the one game we saw him play at Toledo, he didn't do anything notable with his glove one way or the other.

This is the ironic part isn't it? That State was already on the road to buyer's remorse with Tucker anyway.

Maybe - but it was still funny.

Even given Edwards poor game, the rest run game was not all that impressive. There also seemed to be some plays that ended with Michigan lineman well up field but the runner tackled at 1-3 yrs. Something out of sync there. JJ is looking more and more the real deal though.

also - if the US commits to ATACM, that will help unlock German supply of the Taurus. Those two will help force the Russians to re-deploy more air defense resources away from the front.

the Brits are perfectly positioned for this kind of activity. It's as effective as the US doing it but with less collateral fallout.

colorized film and the computer guessed wrong.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-send-long-range-atacms-missiles-ukraine-time/story?id=103031722