gehringer_2

there is one thing about Saudi I am curious about though, which is how well assured MBS's ascension to the throne is once the old king, who is apparently well into dementia, finally passes. Eversince the death of Ibn Saud, the throne has passed from brother to brother among his sons. There was never, has never been any agreed upon plan for what happens when the last direct heir of Ibn Saud died. We are fast approaching that point. This is what has made MBS possible in a way. If more of his uncles were still alive, he would know he had no path to the throne so what he is doing to consolidate his personal power would be pointless, but I believe there is only one uncle left now - so he sees the throne as close enough to sieze. I don't know much about the uncle other than that MBS has had him arrested at least once, so there is probably no love lost there now. So the question is what kind of political operative is old uncle Ahmed? Is he content to just slip away into a posh Arabian sunset and leave the field to his nephew, or can/will he or his people be manuevering to block MBS's path to the throne when the time comes, and/or do/will they have any capacity to do that? And even if Ahmed's clan stands clear, there are at least 100 other grandsons of old Saud who may figure they have just as much 'right' to the throne as MBS. Are they all fat and happy enough? Is there some block of them with ambition? Will there be a knife in the dark one night in Riyadh? Who knows? I certainly hope US intelligence is working these questions for Biden though.

when it comes to the ME that's a tall order!

I'm amused that after having played a dozen US adminstrations for the fool over better than 50 yrs, with one completely predictable vote on oil production, the Saudi's seem to have suddenly outworn their welcome with the US Gov.

Verdicts in Alex Jones case already over $700Million and the Judge isn't done reading yet. Jones out of business, Rush is dead. Have to enjoy the small victories.

I'm familiar enough with the chemistry to accept that is was a good code change, but the mitigating factor in a place like SE MI is that our gas is clean and dry enough that in *practice* a copper supply probably never fails. But there is no easy systematic way to build a reg around that.

Should be interesting. Harold gets a lot of hits which had made him fan favorite, but his power is so poor it's still a pretty empty BA and he is not a good IF, doesn't have the arm for 3rd, doesn't have the range or arm for short, is slow turning the DP at 2nd and has a completely insufficient bat for 1st. If anything I see Palacios as taking his spot even more than Willi's.

I think the other aspect is the the Tigers had really gotten away from the conventional wisdom (which I think is good wisdom) that the utility guys have to at least be plus defenders since they don't carry an MLB stick. Avila had been moving prospects whose bats had failed to develop but who were not great defenders in the first place into utility roles - exhibit A being both Castros. You lose on both ends when you do that.

could be one Castro down..... Twins prospect report 2022: Scouting grades: Hit: 45 | Power: 45 | Run: 50 | Arm: 60 | Field: 60 | Overall: 45 Sometimes you can go home again. The Twins originally signed Palacios for $75,000 in September of 2013, and he toiled away in relative anonymity in the lower levels over four summers before he was traded to the Rays prior to the 2018 season in return for Jake Odorizzi. After two rough seasons in the Rays organization and the 2020 shutdown, he came back to the Twins as a Minor League free agent prior to the 2021 season, where he had a breakout with the bat in Double-A while continuing to provide his typical strong defense, something that has continued with a move to Triple-A this season. Palacios’ outburst with the bat was a bit of a surprise as the right-handed hitter controlled the strike zone better and tapped into his raw power more consistently, setting a career high in home runs with 19 and showing an improved ability to make hard contact. His success continued in the Venezuelan Winter League, where he posted a .987 OPS in 150 at-bats. Palacios has always been an excellent defender with very good hands, instincts and a plus arm. He has the tools to play shortstop defensively on a daily basis, but any big league future lies in his ability to move around the field. He’s shown he can handle all four infield spots with aplomb and even played left field over the winter, giving him the chance to fill a utility role at the highest level.

Yeah - Lalonde was downplaying the whole "He made the team" thing in his presser. Kept coming back to the fact that guys like Elmer might still easily be bumped based on injury recovery by other players or special team decisions.

Yes and Yes. Keep each player on his best development path - don't take guys off their best position in the minors because you *think* you have a hole to file in two years, only assume any minor leaguer is automatically going to be able to fill an opening if his name is Mike Trout or Wander Franco.

Nah - I loved me some StevieY in his day - I'm just admitting that at any given time there are a fair number of really good players in the NHL. I'm just arguing that having special luck (not that it's not nice to have.....) is not the only way to get some of them. You do need a heads up FO, and hopefully we have that now.

that is your quote that I dispute. Yzerman was great player, he was not a generational one by my definition. How many scoring championships did he win for example? There were at least half a dozen guys as good as Steve when he played - Getzky obviously, but I'd have taken Messier, Forsberg, Sakic, Lemiuex, Fleury, his own teammate Federov, all pretty much even up to Yzerman talent wise and that's after only 30 seconds thought. By my definition you can't have more than half a dozen 'generational' talents in the league at the same time. I would give you Mario and Gretzsky as 'generational' in Yzerman's era, the rest were the rest of the best. If you want to disagree on that definition - that's fine, but when you say 'a guy at the very top of the draft' like McDavid - that is closer to what you are talking about - not an Yzerman or Federov. You don't need the top pick in the draft to build a winning team in the NHL. Heck, Edmonton has had the best player in the league for 7 yrs and while they are pretty good now, they haven't even won their division once with him.

Detroit fan overrates home talent. News at 11. They were all very good. Lidstrom *maybe* generational. The rest only if you consider every HOFer 'generational'. That's one take but it wouldn't be mine.

LOL - I think that is what I said. My point was that you don't need the luck to score the #1/1 level "generational" pick player which is what had been cited. The highest draft pick on our SC teams was Yzerman at #4. We have ROY Seider staring us in the face picked #6. You can trade your way to a #6 easily enough....etc.

That's not really the biggest impediment to winning though. You don't need one of the top two or three players in the league, just enough very good ones. Yzerman, Federov, Z, Datsyuk were never the premier player in the league in their time - maybe Lidstom was the best D man for a stretch. It's a team game.

Larkin's strengths are his close in shooting but even moreso as a playmaker. We should get more out of him as the players on the ice with him improve. I think Ras is fast enough at top speed. The question for guys his size is can you sustain the energy output to go at top speed enough of the time or at least learn to play smart enough to manage your energy output for the highest production.

It surely wouldn't hurt. It would probably give him more cover if maybe India made a stronger move first - you know it will really kill Xi to have to appear in the US 'camp' on anything

I also despaired he would ever gain sufficient command. But Joe's at the age where an improvement in command is something you want to give some run to. He was sort of the anti-Soto in that regard this year.

Veleno makes sense, it's sink or swim for him now - no point in him spending more time at GR. You'd rather know whether he can stick or not before the guys you sent down make their case to be brought back. I don't think Elmer even needs to do to that much scoring wise for them to be happy - just be really hard to play against. If Lalonde can get Ras and Soderblom both providing size with a hard edge, that should also open things up for Larkin's line in terms of match ups.

I think if you are XI, it's easiest to just play out the hand. You don't have to do anything - take Putins oil at a discount, don't give him any material support and when the war ends you are still whole. The West isn't going to sanction China just for buying Russian oil. Xi would certainly rather save Putin from himself - he prefers Russia as a strategic power that divides US military attention. If Putin succeeds in destroying Russian military power to where the Balts, Poland, Ukraine and Scandinavia don't even need US support to secure Europe for themselves, that's a worst case scenario for Xi. But it's not clear to me how much influence he or anyone can have on Putin's behavior. In the extreme case, China could stop buying Russian hyddrocarbons, which could well bring down the Russian government, but I just have a hard time seeing China passing up so much commercial advantage for any 'politics'.

So Jeimer is the only one where the dollars might seriously influence any decision. TBH, Jimenez is the only guy on the list I'd make any particular priority to bring back. The rest are all filler material. INow if someone would give me something in trade for Soto I would take it. And then maybe Meadows - assuming the team is able to come to some reasonable understanding and prediction of what he might be in 2023.

Ukraine needs to follow the same script they did with the Antonovsky bridge - hit it again as soon as the Russians put another munitions train on it.

When you create a propaganda state and then live in it long enough, you start to believe your own garbage is the reality. These attacks were stupid at any strategic level because as Lee says, they will do nothing to improve the Russian situation on the actual battlefield, plus it will surely catalyze the upgrading of Ukraine's capabilities on that battlefield in major ways. Much like the destruction of the pipelines, Russia focuses their energy on the symbolic aspect of an act while ignoring the concrete results the act will produce. Losers.

True enough. Then again, just to throw out a Devil's advocate possibility, for all we know the opposite could be true, and he's not going away because he wants to contribute because he doesn't want to take the money for nothing - in which case what the team may have to do is go out of its way to make the point to him that he has 'permission' so to speak, to take the money and retire - which might not be easy for the management to bring itself to do either! I'd guess there is a lot of opportunity for poor communication/misunderstanding in this situation.