gehringer_2

Just in the little time he was finally here - I think Paredes' critics have a point - his hitting needs work, the kind of work that probably can't be done while playing in the majors. But he seems a guy caught in that no-mans land where there is not enough failure pressure below the majors (e.g. winter league batting crown) to push him where he needs to be but where he is isn't going to play in the majors. He's needs to make a swing/timing change that gets him back into fair territory when he turns on a ball. He won't make when only 20% of the balls he barrels up stay between the white lines

fair point.

Likewise. People get too wrapped up in appearances. Al Avila's public speaking skills have virtually nothing to do with his ability (or alternately lack thereof) to build a winning baseball team for Detroit. Nothing he said or didn't say or how he said it has any impact on whether we land or fail to land a top shortstop or whether the Tigers #2 pick in the 2022 draft makes the majors. He's definitely a curious type though - watch him when Hinch was speaking, he was usually looking up or away, lots of nervous energy in the hands. Little signs he'd rather have been somewhere else, but who knows?

True enough, but BC, Harvard, MIT are all private institutions with no common mission with UMass Boston. For one public University to set up some kind of institute on another's doorstep without there being a cooperative organization is unseemly at best - at least IMHO. They are supposed to be rowing in the same direction.

except that since there is almost no place in the US that you can have multiple independent IP sources wired to your house, the idea that IP service is fundamentally different from on-air is a distinction without a difference from the public end - it's still a limited shared resources. Not to mention that a huge slice of the IP packets moving today are moving across cellular radio - which by the way goes over those same public airways.

..cont': If you want to do something significant - and successful, in higer ed in Det you should be doing with *with* WSU, not planting a flag in their front lawn like some kind of privileged carpetbagger.

The Detroit thing is silly - what do you think you going to do to impact higher ed in Detroit while practically sitting on Wayne State's doorstep? WSU is not exactly chopped liver. Philbert was a major diversity marker - the highest ranking minority at the U. Did anyone think they could just bounce him before the evidence was incontrovertible? I don't really know how people expected that to go otherwise. There are a lot of people around the U on both ends that are fairly completely divorced from reality. That was what I liked about Schlissel, other than thinking he could make the campus carbon neutral he was in general pretty well grounded in the real world.

and if there are regents actually bent out of shape over some of the stuff in the Freep story they need to get a grip. The GEO and Lecturer contracts were actually handled pretty well in my view. There was enough noise that people were able to make their complaints about being repressed but classes pretty much went on without significant impact. The downtown Detroit thing is pure donor ego tripping - that whole program is a flyspeck on the mission of the University - it's basically a vanity project for Gilbert or now an Ilitch if they end up taking it on. As to the handling of COVID? The U vaccinated half the damn county.

I could be wrong but I don't think this much about football or Anderson. Or at least about any rational expectation about what the admin could be doing differently about either. The search should get interesting though. I don't think the regents understand how radical a significant part of the faculty is. It can't be an easy walk between sliver spoon ambulance chaser Regents and the UM faculty Senate. The faculty member standing in my lab when the news came over the UM mail system was thrilled he was out. Of course she is too young to have been here during Duderstadt or Bollinger; to know what bad actually looks like in a UM Pres. He was an old white male and that is all she needs to know. And that's an Engin School Prof - extrapolate that to where your average LSA faculty is. Here's hoping the Regents know a really competent candidate who checks enough diversity boxes to keep the torch and pitchfork crowd off the Diag.

I think it was 'expect Willi Castro to get cut.' 'Hasn't put it together' being the operative part of the quote!

only 1.8 million per WAR though, which does make it a pretty nice signing.

Gavin Lux's bat hasn't exactly lit up MLB. LA may let Seager walk but I think it would have more to do with the money than that they think Lux has to play.

Yeah - there is a definite psychology to it. I remember the pre-division days and having 6 or even 7 teams between your team and the top just feels way more depressing than being in 4th or 5th place even with the same poor winning percentage.

Yeah - I think they are comfortable with the kids at the top of the order. On the pitching side I think they will be looking for innings eaters, not Cy Young candidates. I'd spend my money at catcher, but I don't think there is even going to be much out there to at C to spend it on, so that brings us back to SS as the likeliest big ticket acquisition. Giants could refuse their '22 option on Posey. I wouldn't! Yan Gomes and Maldonado are pretty much over the hill. Just not much out there at C. Every is either old or worse than Haase.

I'd guess there would be a lot of resistance to doing a handicapped series, but in reality it makes a lot of sense. The conventional reward for the top teams in any playoff would be a bye, but in baseball extended time off is about the worst thing that you can do to team. Thus the handicapped series makes a lot more sense, but I still doubt that would change minds among the great unwashed, who will see it as strange and 'unfair.'

IIRC, Burns played God in a film with John Denver in the 70's here it is: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076489/ and here are george and his partner gracie. Gracie Allen was very funny. I used to hear their routines when I was a kid and I never got the jokes. I didn't realize how talented she was until I was older and they were long gone. https://youtu.be/yDCjhLOaNZI

good stuff. I did not know the guarantee didn't kick in until the 1st day of season. Is the prorating is based on 187 days? If so then 45 days would be about 1/4 of the contract? I imagine most teams don't even want to go there for a player they get nothing back from.

IDK - this procedure is supposed to have a significantly shorter rehab than TJ. But sure that is the obvious question. Whether or not they might have some clarity around his return schedule before arbitration decisions have to be made will obviously play into the decision in a big way.

0-16 and 0-17 would be the matching bookends for Stafford's Lion career.

I don't think you can do that. If the team goes to arbitration they are obligated to pay whichever award is made - in effect it would become like any other MLB contract - guaranteed. If you don't want to risk paying the award you have to give the player his release before arbitration - he's then a free agent.

Good question, I've wondered about that one too. That's the kind of question that Shelton used to know the answer to.

Ugly turnover by a D-guy I've heard of (and probably won't again) to put the Wings down 5-4

true, his choice is constrained in that sense, but it's still his free choice to make. Maybe a counter example would be the Senate Parliamentarian. He/she is the arbiter of a set of rules. They make rulings but only to apply that set of rules, it's not (supposed to be!) his/her political preference that says whether something can be included in a reconciliation bill, they're there to apply a rule without regard to which they think is the better outcome. There is no rule determining which offer the baseball arbitrator chooses. He can pick either precisely because he thinks it is the fairer outcome. He is supposed to apply his own judgment. Anyway - that is how I now understand it.

George Burns

LOL. So I was going to use 'arbiter' in my prior posts but realized I didn't know if there was a difference between 'arbiter' and 'arbitrator' or if 'arbitrator' was just another needless addition of syllables to sound more imperious. Turns out there is one. In law, an arbiter executes a ruling he doesn't have any choice in - IOW he can only apply some pre-existing rule - his function is what I believe they call 'ministerial'. In contrast an 'arbitrator' has freedom to create an outcome. So since in baseball the choice between the contracts is one the guy in question is free to make using his own judgement, he is an 'arbitrator'. So I learned something new today.