gehringer_2

I think there are two sides to this. The converse is that I do think the Tigers have a rep as an org that treats their players well, has a pliant press, and a generous fan base. You have players out there who have a more workman like view of their careers, and those guys are probably willing to come here for a fair offer. What you won't get are guys who only want to win. Aye there's the rub because if you don't at least have some of those guys you are going to end up with a team with no fire and no sense of urgency. But you don't need every guy in the clubhouse to be a hard core. So I think the Tigers can still add by FA, but the leadership core is going to have to be internally generated to get off the ground.

yeah - we pretty much have to hope that was the case.

yup. Pull back to 50,000 feet and you find the S&P will open 2023 about 18% higher than it opened 2020. That's still about 5.5% per annum compounded. That big bubble in between was mostly froth generated by pandemic money sloshing around with no-where else to go.

A downside issue I see with this legislation though is that if it does 'open up competition' and you do get dozens of credit card companies out there, then that becomes a mess (read "cost") of a different kind for retailers and consumers to deal with. This could be one of those, "be careful what you wish for" kind of things. Credit payment clearance is really something that should be a natural monopoly - run by the Post Office or something. When you think about it, it's exactly the kind of utility service where a regulated public monopoly would work just fine.

all Harris (and us) can hope for the near term is that there is more talent in the org than was being properly exploited - i.e. that better coaching and development management can unlock some value that was latent and do it pretty quickly (Kreidler, Perez, Keith etc). At the major league level that means mostly getting Meadow, Rodriguez, Schoop, and Baez on track. But the paradox or contradiction at the ML level is that if these players are or should have been or turns out to be better than they played last season, what does mean about Hinch? Or was Hinch ready to make coaching or data system changes that Al wouldn't support?

I didn't see last night's game - was Hellberg weak or the whole team bad early on?

LOL - all the credit card co rep is saying if you cut *our* profits, we will be less likely to run bonus programs - nothing in the legislation bans anything except the ability of the current operators to keep out competitors, which will likely reduce the size of the credit card surcharges current operators get away with. And the idea that it would help big retailers more than small is counterfactual. It's small businesses and low margin businesses that don't want you to use your credit card today because the surcharge, as evidenced by where you find cash discounts offered. Large retailers in general have more margin than small so I'd say the guy in the Yahoo story is pretty much spreading pure credit card co FUD. https://www.durbin.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/durbin-marshall-introduce-bipartisan-credit-card-competition-act

I assume he came to mind because of the story that Gallant benched him? Not a great way to build a guy's trade value if you do want to move him!

IDK - I wonder how GMs around the league rate him at this point. My take would be that Edvinsson is too much, and of course Bertuzzi alone wouldn't do it.

not enough to get him.... It's hard to get anywhere making trades until you have an XS of something to trade out of. Wings still aren't that deep. It looks like they may have more wingers than they need in week or two, but no-one in that group is going to get you within a sniff of that trade.

The relationship between first time claims and the direction of the unemployment rate can vary, but in the last few cycles, unemployment tends not to go up when claims are less than ~300k/month, so the current numbers still indicate a tight job market.

Is Gleybar Torres available?

who knows what's doing on with that? They don't have any confidence in Ned, but that situation isn't going to change with him not playing. Hellberg is just a stop gap, but what's the gap if the situation with Ned is static? Or maybe Yzerman is trying to land another goalie as we type.

Did I miss the word on Legendary Lloyd's replacement for Toledo or is that still open?

The public is stuck in a sense when something big hits like COVID. Some kind of bailout plan was good idea - you write the best bill you can get through knowing before hand it will be abused but that is the price you pay for any kind of action. You can always look back in 20/20 and see what kind of clawbacks you should have included for the abusers, but the truth is the best you can do is try to remember the history for next time. How government deals with big business is really the political question of the age, from social media cos to dereg to Citizen's United to 'Industrial Policy'. The 180 deg political split between the parties today insures little to no progress is made. In my personal view that is because now that we have let the business camel's nose into the tent, their ability to spread political money acts to prevent any kind of needed system correction. It's one of those structural things that flies below the radar of the MS media fascination with personalities and the immediate threat of large swath of the public's growing sympathy with fascism and even War in Europe, but it's an important threat to the body politic none-the-less.

so you're saying Harris is approaching zero asymptotically?

meh - give his money to make sure you sign Larkin, who is really playing like a star this season.

Probably not by anything he said, unless someone sues hoping some court might establish a new precedent in extending fraud law. I did read that they are looking into whether somewhere along the line he violated either a NY State or Federal law by filling out some required form falsely, which is a more straight up crime. The correct response is that any Congress run by a party with a shred of ethical spine would refuse to seat him, but we aren't holding our breath there.

you are assuming the Gov actually has some kind of legal lever to tell an airline what kind of management SW to run. I think you would find they do not. It's called 'free' enterprise for a reason. Direct airline regulation ended nearly 40 yrs ago. There is no longer any enabling legislation that allows the Transportation Sec to tell an airline how to run the details of their business.

Yzerman has a few days to move someone for a pick. 😉 The bad part is we really don't know what we get out of Fabbri or Vrana. Vrana has only a very short track record with the Wings and neither has any track record playing for Lalonde - who has the team playing a different game than the one the Wings were playing last season when Vrana and Fabbri had contributed. FTM Bertuzzi had shown pretty much nothing this season when he's managed to get on the ice.

they should be in decent shape half a dozen points out of the wildcard with more than half a season left and supposedly front line players yet to return - but it would sure help to get a workable goal tending rotation going.

Pretty modest career for a guy they had written in for Cooperstown before he ever played an inning in the majors.

LOL - I don't know if they have gone downhill everywhere or just locally - Wendy's used to have regional franchises so maybe it's just the group here, but the one I used to hit for lunch just got progressively worse about misfiling orders to where I stopped going, then it just closed. When they first appeared, the stores with the taco/salad bars were the best. Been a long slow decline from there!

yeah - I think he has actually looked better in recent appearances. But a guess given his judo and hockey playing history is that he has bouts of sciatica that can leave him in some level of pain when sitting upright or standing straight at a podium. That video of clip of his meeting with Shiogu that had everyone speculating could easily have just been back pain.

Soderblom is an easy move organizationally, would be a bad move competitively. 4 points in his 4 games since returning, +4 in that span, and on only 10 min/game. There are half a dozen forwards who bring less than Soderblom is currently.