gehringer_2

Hear! Hear! (and also thear!)

In Ann Arbor, on Pymouth road between town and UM North Campus, there is a wide path on both sides of the road that cycles can use, but you still see crazies out in the middle of the 4 lane. Why - because for 40 yrs A^2 has loved to put in bike lanes, but once installed does not maintain them (huge peeve.) You can lose you dental work riding on them. Within 5 years of installation virtually every bike path built in A^2 was trash to ride on and to this day only one or two have even been rebuilt. They've just put in another round of new ones, I'll be interested to see how long they stay ridable.

UCLA and Fresno state lost. There will be no CA team in the rankings.

Cabrera was productive for 4 of 6 months this season, and they don't have other bats that can't field vying for the DH spot so I don't see Cabrera as an immediate issue. Paredes is going to be in Toledo trying to figure out how to hit the ball hard and fair at the same time, W. Castro and Niko will be gone or on the bench so 2b will be open for Schoop leaving 1B open for Torkelson - who can give Candelario a few more days off than he got this year if Cabrera still gets a few games at 1B. It's catcher and short they have to worry about. Barring injuries I don't see big positional battles/issues anywhere else.

Why is Urena still out there? Why are we trying to save the bullpen when there is only one game left? Why would a swallow be carrying anything while doing an air speed test?

The book is now closed on Manning, Skubal and Mize for '21. So out of that huge stable of arms the Tigers could count three years ago after drafting Miz, 4 have become solid starters - Skubal, Mize, Manning and assuming he comes back healthy in '23, Turnbull. Two look like solid relievers - Funkhouse and Fulmer, Even Feado still has a chance to make the majors after his TJ. On the down side, Norris never turned into the pitcher I thought he might have been, Burrows has pretty much washed out - back in the minors with a different team. And Boyd is just Boyd. But that is still an amazing success rate for pitchers.

Riley hitless in a Hens 8-5 win, but walked twice, scored twice and stole a bag. Tork with a hit and also 2 walks.

Georgia looking pretty good.

yeah - the power seemed tied to longer bat path to the pull field.

Frustrating AB. I'd try to get him to close his initial stance a little so that his step in wasn't so deep. Might get him out of the pull field a little.

Paredes needs to slow it down just a touch.

Niko and W. Castro out of the lineup. Paredes comes through with a great defensive play against Abreu. Hinch is already a genius.

Preseason FB is meaningless. I wouldn't make that judgment until they play together when it counts.

absolutely. Cars and bicycles don't mix. I've done thousands of miles on a road bike in my life but I know enough physics to appreciate that what the law or the rules or the anti-car crowd or the urban reformers or anyone else says, you get in the way of a 300 hp, 2 ton steel object on a bicycle and you get dead pretty quick.

That was too easy. And TBF, physically these teams were a lot closer than the score; it was turnovers that took Wisconsin out of the game. And that's fair enough - you are not a good team if you turn the ball over a lot. But M shouldn't get to pleased with itself either just because Wisconsin didn't take care of the football.

Greene is having himself a day this last week. AAA East is going to be happy to see this crew promoted to Detroit. Who ever heard of a AAA lineup with 4 >850 OPS hitters?

Numbers trending down nationally but still growing in MI. 4K cases per day for the last two days per the State report.

Niko steals the base, Cameron strikes out and interferes with Grandal, producing a DP without ever getting the bat on the ball or leaving the batter's box.

This could really be fun. The Tigers haven't hit on a really great player since Verlander - we're due.

In Greene's case, you have a 900 OPS, a 300 BA, 20+ HR and a guy who went from AA to AAA and held or *improved* his numbers across the board. Maybe that guy isn't ready but he for sure is ready to be tested to see if he's ready. Tork did stumble a bit on his promotion in terms of bat to ball, but even then not in the power dept at all. If he plays some kind of winter ball (he and Greene maybe both to the AFL) he could be as ready as he needs to be for his 1st test as well. In any case, if W. Castro, and Goodrum are anywhere near the 26 man next year I will be sorely disappointed. I really don't see how you keep Greene in the minors going into next year beyond maybe those couple of weeks of service time manipulation - assuming the CBA doesn't change all that. Sure I could see him stumbling and being sent back down, but I think he's ready enough for the chance to fail.

over/under: if the states of the old confederacy seceded today they'd be poorer than Mexico in 20 yrs?

I guess I don't follow why it's not a good thing to be strong on both sides of the O-Line. It's not like the opposition is going to promise to always blitz or line up their best DE over our LT.

OK - I wasn't sure if you were arguing he walk rate was high or low in this context. The counter arg would be that he is capable of walking at an even higher rate and is thus still being more aggressive than he *might* be. I'm not arguing that is true but he does seem to be a rare talent so we may need to hold open the possibility we underestimate him to project from league average values. All that said, having just turned 21 a few days ago, it's most likely he is still learning what he can't hit and he will likely also gain the strength to get the bat to more balls he sees well enough but doesn't reach now.

LOL - I must have known your father. When I was in college I worked in the bookstore and one of the owners kept a sign on his desk that said, "Why is there *never* time to do the job right in the first place, but *always* time to do it over?"

And there is some history of Mayhem in the those waters. I well recall the day my father, one and a half decades removed from the US Navy, deciding we had to walk 1/2 way across the Ambassador bridge just to stop and lean over the edge and look down at this ship (and take a few snaps with the Argus C3) which managed to get itself sunk smack dab under the span 59 yrs ago. They say she lost a load of European wine as she went down, though a guess would be some of the wine had already found its way to the lake pilot that rammed her into the barge.