gehringer_2

without a doubt that would have to be a graphic novel.

interesting piece by Farhad Manjoo about what really provides the oxygen to keep the conspiracy hawkers like Alex Jones going:

On the one hand, the pitch was middle middle. OTOH, the pitch was middle-middle and he did what he's supposed to do with a middle-middle pitch.

don't give up yet. He's raised his August OPS to 870 tonight.

Just a little golden parachute for Donnie (along with some of that 'light treason'?). I mean, just ask him, who could deserve it more?

OTOH, Parker Meadows with a nice night, 2/3 HR 2B BB

Final line 53 pitches, 39 strikes. 5 IP, 1H 0R 1BB 6K maybe one more rehab start since he only threw 53?

nothing about it would be illegal but if it ever caught in they'd just put IR filters in front of the cameras and that would be the end of that.

Whether the scouts have a good take on the guy at the point Carpenter reached is pretty much irrelevant. If a guy has an OPS >1000, there isn't much he going to gain from looking at more AAA pitching - so he's either going to break through or not. Either way once he's no longer challenged at AAA there really is nothing more to do other give him his shot and see what happens. Your development system doesn't exist for the benefit of AAA, it exists to determine if the guy can make it or not. In Kody's case, his minor league clock is running out - same deal, you have to prove what you do or don't have. In Baddoo's case, I'd have been fine with him staying in Toledo until he had proven more. My complaint with the handling of Baddoo is that wherever you have him, he needs to be playing every day

yeah - this is the thing. Anyone who is still a red hat at this point is beyond the reach of evidence, argument, or even what they see in front of them with their own eyes. These are folks are locked in and they are doing to die that way unless they are lucky enough for something to happen to them personally that happens to break them out of their self-constructed mental prison.

maybe we should start a countdown, like: "It's August 11, why is Scott Coolbaugh is still employed?......"

Probably a decent chance Russell would not have approved.

I wonder if increasing use of the curve might one consequence of a move to an electronic strike zone. A lot of umpires have trouble calling the curve at both the top and bottom of the zone. It has to be frustrating to pitchers to make good pitches and not get the call and it's a pretty regular occurrence with curve balls.

CDC dropping quarantine recommendation for CV19 exposed students. Fairly official recognition that what was once a pandemic is now simply an endemic. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-cdc-no-longer-recommends-students-quarantine-covid-19-exposure-2022-08-11/

odds are he will self-destruct again once he's on an MLB mound. I hope not, but I think for Norris it's always been between the ears.

Gee, you don't think there might have been maybe one or two people at DOJ able to have gamed this out in advance...... 🤔

TBH - the Lions could have retired '20' for Lem Barney before Barry ever wore it but hadn't. So now it's 'retired' for Barry but can't be for Barney, which seems a little odd to me as a fan from back then. But I don't think numbers are that big a deal for most players anyway.

LOL - you and about 5 million more of us!

my totally untrained eyes agree. I think in the end, most hitters just have to trust their own talent and stop trying to coach themselves in the batter's box. I think sometimes they get scared to do that when they get near the top because what if their talent isn't enough? But you have to face that fear and get over it to clear your mind - your limit has been out there waiting for you since little league. Worrying about where it really is it won't help you get to it.

We all agree Avila was a bad trader. To me it came down to being too greedy. I know that sounds ironic since he seldom did get a good return, but it's not at the point of the trade where his 'greed' did him in, it was in trying to both use and trade the same resource, which just doesn't work. Fulmer being the easy example. He didn't want to sign Fulmer, but he held him this year hoping the team would be good enough that Fulmer would be a difference maker and so it would be worth it to drain his trade value. But of course it blew up in his face. The team didn't "need" Fulmer for it to accomplish anything as the team accomplished exactly nothing, meanwhile Fulmer's trade value ran out as he became a rental and we got nothing, nor did the Tigers ever pursue him lock up as a longer term resource. You have to commit one way or the other. You are either selling out to win or you are building for the future. Either might work, half and half is fatal. Al's problem is the he was always half in and half out. He always talked the long term game, and maybe organizationally that were/are committed to a long term view and build process, but in the immediacy of trading, he pretty consistently sacrificed the preservation of long term roster value for short term gain that mostly ended up unrealized anyway. Couple that with the team's inability to successfully identify good prospects in other orgs when they traded 'down', and here we are.

they were still negotiating on the deal by the minute to the last minute with the JV deal. I would think in a situation like that the boss has to approve the outline but let his negotiator finish the deal on his own judgment at the wire. Or short version, I doubt C.I. took a final approval on the particulars that is was Rogers, Perez and Cameron rather than some alternate return. So in that sense, it's both true that C.I. did approve the deal but it was still all Al's choices - 'his deal' all the way. As has already been noted -- I agree that In that case the owner's perspective is the same as the fans' - it wasn't making the trade that had to necessarily be bad, a good return could have justified it.

OTOH, it’s not like Avila wasn’t able to make major changes to the org because of resistance from ownership. Al’s problem wasn’t dealing with organizational stiffness- he changed the org a lot, it was poor talent and trade decisions.

He seems to be a little thin skinned, but OTOH given who he is, he's still not a guy who likes to spend a lot of time in the public eye. Maybe he's never had to work on his personal PR skills much. I also wonder if he overestimated the patience of the fan base - maybe he talked himself into believing this fan base was so great we would never turn on him only to end a bit up out of his reckoning as he found out our patience is no better than any other fan base.

yeah - too bad JVs watch wasn't a few minutes slow.

Was just looking at his history because I wondered if he had previous deep ties to Hinch and it doesn't look like it.