gehringer_2

but this goes back to the ball argument. Yes the shift can be beaten, but as long as your HR/FB ratio is high enough, you are still better off trying to pull the ball into the seats instead of taking fhe improved odds on one base. The good hitters don't hit into the shift because they are stupid, they do it because that is what the stat nerds in the FO are telling them to do and because OPS is what gets them paid and pulling the ball is how to get the total bases that drive their OPS.

We don't know, but that's the kind of thing I am OK with. Sure I want the team to play the kids, but also want them to have the option to pull them back when they are falling on their faces with enough major depth to keep a watchable team on the field. 90% of guys fail at the MLB level, we have to accept that. But that doesn't mean you don't give them their shot. Other than with Tork, the old regime seemed to be stuck on the wrong side of that equation - not moving guys through the system faster while over playing guys that had been around a long time and were only replacement level anyway.

If the twittersphere is to believed, Ukrainian offensive actions are racheting up.

Brian Anderson is still out there I think - I would hope they at least kick the tires there.

I get all this Chash. And I have no problem with them not chasing any of the 9 figure deals. But what I would argue on the other hand is that there is some obligation to put a better product in the field in the interim while you do all the requried foundation work. If that means paying a guy for two years instead of one, to me that is not adequate justification for running a terrible team out there again. For example, sure the Barnhardt deal is an overpay, but in the overall scheme of a major league baseball team the extra years being given out are not the kind of money that that is going to impact the org's ability to do anything else it wants to.

yeah - the game is sort of out of whack, but I don't know what the answer would be - you can't move the 3pt line back any further without widening the court, which seems unlikely. I think what you want is for fans to able to see some effect of team play or apparent coordinated strategy having an impact on the game as opposed to just an exhibition of which players have a hot shooting hand at the moment. The latter will always play a big part in basketball but I don't think you want it to be only/all that.

I don't think any GOP members will vote for Jeffries, but some Dems might go for a plan involving someone like a Kasich or Upton. But is there any leadership level among GOP middle of the roaders to make it happen? Plans don't spring into life by themselves, someone has to lead them. That piece appears missing. The other factor is that I would estimate the odds of an out of the box solution don't start building unless McCarthy removes himself from the race. As long as he keep up the fight I guess the GOP middle is willing to stick with him.

yup. The sad truth is that we still have to hope that we have been wrong about Al and that he was just done in by an epic run of bad luck because if the foundation he put in place and the players in the pipeline he put there do not produce, Harris is going to have a mighty long build out to do.

If Harbaugh bolts MI will move heaven and earth to try to avoid hiring another old white guy as head coach.

yes - I think this is true. The difference is that the Squad's frustration is that they have a program they want to see move forward that they are frustrated more of the party won't support. The FC is coming from a fundamentally nihilist stance. Even ex-GOP members who knew and worked with these people from the inside before they left the fold say their disagreement with them is not over policy but more fundamentally that these people are not interested in governing.

If you lined up everything Al Avila said when he got the job and everything Harris has said since he got the job, you be hard pressed to see any daylight between them. Of course that could be because you have an owner who actually does know what he wants even if his 1st hire could only talk about it instead of doing it. And of course the ultimate irony now is that given that (barring a trade) there will be no impact offensive players added, if they do rebound it's going to be with Avila's players.

I still find it so bizarre that it took 35 yrs for players and coaches to finally learn/accept how high a shooting percentage was possible for human beings at 24'. You would have thought the game would have gotten to where it is today at least 20 years ago once the league was fully populated by players that grew up with it. The long game has been waiting there all along, just waiting for enough Stef Currys to finally prove it to the doubters I guess. And of course here we are in Detroit, on our third or fourth generation of team management that still refuses to understand the primacy of shooting skill.

"condemned to use the tools of my enemy" - very close to a sentiment given to Smiley by LeCarre, if not almost the exact quote.

There is actually a bit of a parallel to what went on at the beginning of the 117st House and the 'Squad', where they didn't want to support Pelosi and the status quo. The difference is that the Squad didn't have the numbers to be a serious threat to Pelosi's election. But there are centrifugal forces operating at the edges on both sides of the spectrum. That being said, the character of those forces are of a far darker and wilder nature on the right. The other difference is that in 2020, blowing up the House meant you would also undercut your own side's Senate and Executive. The FC knows that won't get anything they want from Biden or the Senate, so blowing up the House doesn't cost them any parts of an agenda they have any real hope of getting. Better for them to either win, or see the Speakership go to a Dem/GOP coalition where they can primary any apostate Repubs in '22 that supported a coalition, and extend their numbers inside their caucus.

LOL - I was thinking about how you could actually do this since gravity keeps the surface of water level in any natural body that freezes, but in an arena if you are creating the initial ice by spraying thin layers then continuing to build with a Zamboni I suppose you could create tilted ice. In any case I am old enough to have watched/listened to many a game from the old forum and never heard any such complaint from the Wings. What I am curious about though is that I have tried to find the ice dimensions from the old Forum and haven't found them anywhere on the web. I remember it as a bigger ice surface, certainly deeper corners, maybe Olympic width(?), but I've not found any confirmation one way or the other.

Rep Khana (D) said tonight on CNN that the opening price for Dem's support of any compromise coalition deal is agreement on limitation of nuisance investigative subpeonas against the admin and agreement there will be no shutdowns - debt ceiling etc.

Right - he has to get to 213 first, which he has yet to manage. He must think he made a deal to buy some votes. It sounds like whatever terms he manages to survive under are going to be so emasculating as to not be worth the candle. And of course if the lets the crazies run the show it's hard to see how it could be anything but disasterous for the re-election chances of the rest of the GOP caucus.

somewhat unexpected adjournment after the 3rd vote. No movement to or from McCarthy.

Interesting call for Murdoch. McCarthy is Trump's man and supposedly Murdoch is done with Trump.

and again, the GOP would much rather run against the size of a budget than acutally cut one, so they don't *really* care either.

the truth is that not much usually happens legislatively in the 2nd half of a presidential term anyway. The dems control appointments and they got the budget they wanted this year - Jordan's threat of two full years of nothing but continuing resolutions will be no skin off the Democrats' noses.

Might work for us, but not so much for Pakistan. The first thing a Taliban Pashtunistan would want is their 'half' of Pakistan! 🤷‍♂️

yup, I have an account that follows baseball and Ukraine. Have never made a twit. We are Elon's nemesis users.

One or two Congresses ago I'd have bet on this outcome, but I'm not sure there are enough GOP members sympathtic to this view left, or whose seats would be safe enough if they adopted it.

The calculus is that the hard core right is betting the rest of the causus would rather cave and support them than agree to any coalition with the dems. And I would say that in the end that is probably good bet. The GOP middle has already shown itself to be spineless in their handling of Trump, and the threat of being primaried if they voted for a coalition Speaker will eventually carry the day.