gehringer_2

Today, Christie comes across as loyal to small d democracy, which is more than the rest them other than Hutchinson - or maybe Pence in his otherwise totally moronic way. But no matter what Christie looks like now, the fact that he *did* once go into the tank for Trump. and that he has also proven himself not to be above abuse of his office when he had power, argue that the level of his commitment to principle still has to be regarded as strongly suspect. In the end talk and posturing are cheap. If he wants to play the useful tool to take Trump down, I'd be glad to shake his hand for doing it, but I'm still not going to offer him my car keys.

To clarify, I'm not implying Short is actually going to 'hit' either, but I could be persuaded he might have a year or two at a level improved enough over what he's done in the past to be able to remain useful for the ML team. Or next week he'll crash and burn....🤷‍♂️ I do have to remind myself that maybe for most guys who don't make it, it's not that they never play at a high level, it's that they can't play at a high level consistently enough for that to be their normal.

Late blooming-short career arc guy? Rare, but we did have one once before in D. Kelly.

Koch pretty much sat out the last cycle, but if he actively spends the kind of money *againt* Trump he has spent in some past elections that's a big hit.

A couple of things yesterday. I posted in the game thread that twice he tried to ambush a Morton curve but popped it up. That's a good news/bad news kind of result. No - he didn't execute, but he did have the confidence to have a plan and he got the timing right, just not quite the swing path. The other is that he has hit a couple of hard shots down the RF line (one caught by the 1b of couse!) on outside breaking balls thrown by guys with 95+ fastballs. Not quite Cabrera style but maybe the same idea of going the other way with the breaking ball. If those were deliberate and not just luck and he is trying to learn to make that kind of adjustment that is a pretty high level batting skill.

you wouldn't think. But you can talk yourself into projecting almost anything you want on a 19 yr old. Sometimes you will be right.

the Times or the Athletic? At the time of the purchase Athletic was operating at a loss. and of course, there was this from the same article.

Torkelson was unusually aggressive in his last couple of AB. That seemed like a bit of shift for him. While I agree with Chasfh that in general there was too much pointless chatter from the three Amigos (Starburst anyone?) - there was one stretch when I think they had an interesting hitter/pitchers discussion. It started with Monroe saying he never cared much about the scouting report on a pitcher's tendencies because it didn't do him any good to know he threw pitch 'x', 'y' percent of the time, it's still no guarantee he'd get pitch 'x' if he looked for it on any particular pitch. That was fine, but it got better when Jones and Petry talked about how any good pitcher/catcher battery is changing their approach to each hitter based on what they are seeing from that hitter's swings in real time, Then even the further nuance that as a pitcher they knew that on occasion a top level hitter had 'set them up' by deliberatly telegraphing misdirection about his approach in an AB. The message I think being that in the flood of all the metrics we get (info from the past) don't forget to appreciate the games within the game going on present tense.

Miami was playing some out of this world on ball pressure D but no matter, Denver just kept beating them with their play off the ball and slowly adding to their lead.

Well, it's your choice to be here.....

I'll tell you the one part that did work for me. When Monroe is in the booth with Shep, most of the time he drops his voice register and does this sort of growling "I'm a dramatic voiced professional broadcaster" thing and it sounds ridiculous. Tonight sitting with Jones and Petry he spent most of his time just speaking like a normal human being and he was miles better.

third time he just decided to hit the damn FB. Good choice.

After they took it over, the NYT tried to get everyone to upgrade their subsription packages to include the Athletic, but IIRC it was a big $ bump and I mean honestly - is the NYT readership the prime demo for 'the Athletic'? So I assume that marketing effort has fallen short.

maybe sometimes you just like a guy because he's not going to hurt you if you have to play him. Too many of the guys that have come through our roster recently haven't just been not good, they've been constant disasters waiting to happen.

you know, when I was a young anti-Vietnam and thus also anti-military-industrial complex guy, I though it was sort of quaint that organizations like the USMC spent so much time in their recruiting talking about honor, loyalty, and other virtues when the core reality of their purpose was to break things and kill people. What was the point? But in today's Russia we see all too clearly what an Army unmoored from honor and fidelity brings to the world -- and though all War may be Hell, this Russian Army's brand is something else altogether.

If a Vatnik decides he can't face the oncoming Ukrainians, he better either surrender or take a loaded rifle with him as he retreats. AFU drone footage showing up of Russian rear guard troops gunning down their own retreating men. You have to hand it to an Army that knows how to build morale. Between this kind of outrage and the daily threats of execution flying back and forth between the Russian MOD and Prigozhin, no-one can have seen anything like this before.

Tigers waste a lead off double. Torkelson has twice tried to sit on and golf a Morton curve but popped it up both times.

two in, man on 2nd, still no one out in the 5th. Braves looking to put this one away. EDIT: Hill gets out of the inning without more damage. Game is still in reach at 3-0. At least for the average team on the average night.

Morton's back door breaking ball to the LH hitters looks like it's going way wide then zips right back over the plate

I don't know if this coverage is exactly what you would call good, but it's not missing Shep.

TTBDNS

So we missed a chance to see the 1st Vulcan player make the majors? A blow for intergalactic relations....

This is probably most likely. Hard to imagine the states would accept a system using only the user's representation about where they are. Then again, when it comes to law interfacing with technology, I would never underestimate any legislature's total incompetence. Then again, he could have avoided the whole thing if he had just gone out for a walk. 🚶‍♂️

He's been building his trade value in the last ....week....or so.

This is a case than any reputable lawyer would have to advise his client to plead out for the best deal he can get, but of course there is zero chance of Trump doing that, and who wants to take a case when your client isn't going to listen to your advice?