gehringer_2

are there reasons beyond JEIII to think they are particularly focused on Ayton? Just as a counter point also close to the team, Beard doesn't think they are.

TBH, it doesn't mean anything to the org anyway you cut it. Only die-hard fans follow things like the Athletic, and those fans are already hooked or mad or both, but just like us, they are still paying attention regardless.

If this were a Chris Nolan movie, having Jordan et al bounced from the committee would be McCarthy playing 3-D chess to get rid of Trump, who we know he secretly loathes. But who believes he is that smart in the real world? 🤔

This. The Tigers were too often trying to have it both ways, you are either St. Louis or you are the Yankees but you can't be half and half. They didn't want to pay JD but they didn't want to move him before '17 because they thought they still had a shot. Instead he ended up making no difference and then they got nothing back.

I don't so much have a particular problem with anything the Tigers have done since Chris I took over. The complaint is the pace of change has been too slow. If the PD staff needed to be rolled-over, it needed to and should have been done 4 yrs ago. Most of the actions taken individually are fine - but they keep coming too little or too late. The question for C Ilitch is how to jettison Al the tortoise and bring in a hare that doesn't come in wanting to start everything over at square one.

this team, or just for old times' sake? I sort of like this team and I've always been a bit of a fan of Joe Sakic. I think it would be sort of appropriate see him and Yzerman competing against each other again as GMs.

So I listen to a few of Ezra Klein's NYT podcasts. He had on a doc to discuss long COVID. A relatively young woman and acknowledged specialist. So Ezra was trying to pull out some clarity around all the conflicting reports around long covid prevalence. At one point he challenged some of the estimates that long covid was in the 20-40% range of cases by noting that he already personally knew dozens of people who had by now had covid and no-one had seen any long covid. So she immediately launched into the typical liberal cant about Erza being upper class and systemic racism and classism and medical care access and sexism etc etc so of course it was there and he didn't see it. OK fine. But then not even 5 minutes later, she's going on about how the ER she works in sees people from every strata, race, and economic quartile and she's arguing strongly that long covid respects no class or race or socio-economic boundaries and that there is no data that supports that it does. Hmmmm wait...wut? So it was weird. This scientific person falling into a more or less rote political screed response to a 'trigger' question, when on her own subsequent testimony she argues it had zero validity. But it is exactly what you are talking about. She had a set of beliefs she wanted to defend and promulgate, and projected them into a situation where her own research and experience denied the truth of the specific application, but she seemed blissfully unaware of what she had done, and since she had in the end validated Erza point he didn't press her on her self-contradiction. (And the ethos of his podcasts are not adversarial anyway, though I'm certain he must have picked up what happened as well as I was able to!) So obviously, this is not to deny there are huge institutional racism and socio-economic effects on public health in general in the US. That is not my point at all. But she so believed in that (again -which is fine in general) that she immediately extrapolated it to where she actually knew at a different intellectual level that it didn't apply. That is what I would call a perfect example of emotional 'reasoning'. The human mind is an odd thing.

I thought the shift before the goal was almost comic also. Tampa completely on their heels and couldn't get possession but the Avs had been on the ice so long they were too gassed to get any kind of play going either.

LOL - pretty poor officiating on the goal. The puck was stuck there in the net, don't know why everyone but the referee saw it there.

Av's with all the chances, can't put it away. Looking for a quick breakaway and win by Tampa.

Tampa seemed to have the upper hand as regulation ended - but did they leave themselves gassed?

correct. The issue isn't the trade, it's having Barnhart as your #1 catcher when he'd be a fine #2.

and a 1990's one to boot.

well, Meadows apparently has long COVID, Baddoo is one for his last 8. Manning still isn't throwing off a mound, for all intents and purposes ERod has fallen off the edge of the world. That leaves Pineda. Feel the excitement.

there is probably no level of defensive contribution enough to make up for an OPS+ in the 50s or 60s. You can't just give away 11% of your team PAs before the game even starts.

Fewer HRs coming at AA but XBH, walk and K rate all good so far.

Why are we still dumping on Javy who has at least started to hit. Plenty of dumping to be done on the likes of Schoop Barnhart and Grossman

Baddoo and Kreidler each with a double for 4. Perez 2/5 - hitting over 360 since his promotion to AA. I'm told he can play 2B.

Pu-lease. We've already been through 10 yrs of teams of big men that can't shoot. That was torture enough.

still too many bad hitters. Almost more frustrating now - Baez, Greene and Cabrera can get on base but three hitters is too short a line up to drive anyone in.

Grossman 1 for 10 since the 2 HRs.

unfreaking real. 1st & 3rd no out - 2K Torkelson; 2 line drives, two outs.

wut? How does the league approve a trade of an asset that had already been conveyed?

I don't know if he just couldn't find it at all or the way the Ump squeezed him in the 3rd just killed his confidence for the night.

well folks, the one bright spot left to this season is now flaming out. When do the Red Wings open camp?