gehringer_2

2019 was a quite the 1st round. 5 of the top 20 have already made an all-star team plus Riley, who has a good shot to.

I'm just going to file that he came out of this ST throwing harder than he ever had before.

good call - pretty clear here:

you don't have to tell me the options are bad, but there is still *always* a downside limit to what any team will carry bat futility wise. Just based on what will get a manager laughed at the golf outing - I think Javy is about there. Now maybe the org will persuade itself he's having better AB and they give him more rope - for a while, but I still think they do *something* even if Kreidler isn't ready if Javy's trajectory doesn't change in the next....say 50 AB - even if it's a waiver claim, or Valade or whatever. So - we'll see how it plays out....You may be more right - but I sort of hope not. I'd rather see them deal with it.

It's a measure of desperate times that Rob Deer would look pretty good right now.

This. It won't be hard to find a jury to acquit - all they have to do in FLA is find a white one which should be easy in an area that is >90% white.

IDK if it's reasonable to wait for Kreidler if Javy is stuck at a 450 OPS very much longer. They have some options in McKinstry and Urshella - they may be painful but not as excruciating as Baez.

Could be. Also he was the continuation of a regime that has been successful at one point - plus you had Mike's death which was certainly a reason to give management some slack because ownership attention on the franchise was assumed to be distracted by other succession issues in Ilitch holdings. Plus Al said the right things. He talked about pretty much the same things Harris does - he just didn't execute well enough or fast enough - and that took time to transpire.

what do you think they train it on? 🤷‍♂️

you're overthinking it.... The other thing about oil is that you'd think it would be relatively easy for producers to cut back production and the market would be very elastic - but it turns out not so much. Oil coming from secondary and tertiary recovery methods is not so easy to stop and start, and the places were the oil is still easy (Middle East) most of the them need the money too much to cut back. Saudi is the only place that can really soften or firm the market - The question is what do they think about the war In Ukraine? Pre- MBS they were pretty anti-Russia. With MBS, who knows?

who really knows? If it's a 'good' jury, in the sense of understanding what is presented, then yes should be damaging because the prosecution succeeded in the only objective for calling Daniels, which was to show that Trump had adequate reason to pay her to shut up. that her story in public would reasonably be considered a threat to his election chances. I don't think any of the particulars of her testimony or even it's truth mattered much per se; as long as she presented as a person that could damage his election chances. I don't see that anything the defense did undercut building that premise. But the fact that that's how it looks on the outside is just a guess as to how it plays in the jury room. I am old enough to be a little surprised that this jury isn't being sequestered, but I suppose in the era of the smart-phone that's pretty pointless.

Bigbie got off to such a slow start, made it look like his hot finish last season was just a mirage - but he's started to turn it around a bit. 900 OPS so far in May.

I think the line that may do more to get him convicted came later from the secretary - the reported quote from Trump that you "hire good people and then DON'T trust them." They're riveting down the case that no money got spent in the Trump org with out Trump knowing exactly who/what/why.

Baez started the season poorly and has only gotten worse. 524 OPS in April, 456 in his last 55 PA and 178 (!) so far in May. He has a good chance of hitting under 150 over his 1st 150 PA. At this point it would be a breakthrough just to get last years Baez back - as bad as it seemed then Looking at BR, Urshella has played about as many MLB games at short as McKinstry - neither has a good defensive rating in what is too small a sample to mean much for either of them. They would at least be a R/L platoon pair if you bench Javy.

If Torkelson doesn't straighten out, it's easy enough to put somebody - probably Canha, at 1B. But catcher and SS are going to be hard to fix. We have guys we can put at SS, but none that probably won't cost us runs there, and Dingler is only managing 230 against AAA pitching so that's not very promising.

The best deals for a team like the Tigers do not give up young for old, they are the ones where you have done your homework on up and comers around the high minors or green rookies that haven't proven anything, like Austin Jackson and Max Scherzer. But of course deals like that kill your roster value if the guys you bring don't pan out. So really - it's the same as it ever was - if you can evaluate talent - especially that others miss, you can build a winner. Or you grow your own, or you can spend $250M on payroll. That's really all there is available to management. I think there is a lot of magic thinking that the right GM can just wheel and deal his team into contention. Well, he can try, but in most cases what looks like short term success is burning a system's future seed corn, the way Dombrowski burned ours.

I almost became a fan, but I couldn't get there from here...

yup - Roger McGuinn's 12 string and America's voicing, but their sense of rhythm needs work - boring. Related: I've read the studio used session men on the Byrd's first recording work because they didn't believe McGuinn could play the guitar.... LOL

LOL -If you look up Xenophobe in your dictionary you are sure to find a picture of Ann Coulter.

We really have too few technically informed people in the US gov. Ukraine has started going after Russian refining capacity in a big way - some reports say they have disabled 15% of Russia's refining capacity. That may not sound that high but nobody leaves excess refining capacity around - it's too expensive, so capacity tends to match demand very closely - thus even a moderate reduction in capacity creates shortages. But the US - apparently in it's official ignorance, has complained to Ukraine that they don't want them to do that because it will push up oil prices. Except that if one user can't refine oil, you have reduced crude oil demand - that means MORE crude oil is left for the world market, not less, which means crude oil prices do not go up when you disable Russian refineries. Engin-Econ 101 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-09/us-slams-strikes-on-russia-oil-refineries-as-risk-to-oil-markets

speaking of which - another terrible story in WaPo out of FLA about incompetent deputies who charged into the wrong apartment and killed a USAF airman. Resident had a gun, cops apparently did not identify, so another case of trigger happy cops (the young man was Black, of course) but another case of a someone buying a gun for their protection and it being the direct cause of their death. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/09/florida-police-shoot-black-airman-roger-fortson/

Now don't go giving the GOP any ideas about how to violate the Constitution in yet new ways!

Sadly, if it was hoped his approach would rub off on Torkelson it's been a fail so far.

Necheles running into heavy weather going after Stormy https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/09/trump-hush-money-trial-live-updates-stormy-daniels-testimony/

situation with the lake may be a sore subject for the locals.