gehringer_2

I don't think players aren't better today, but that is a slightly different question than whether the pool is bigger. A smaller pool could still produce the same or a even larger number of players because of training, tech, more effective scouting within the pool etc. At any rate, that said, what are the numbers? The population of Central America, the Carribean, Mexico and Venezuela together is a bit more than the US, so if you take a starting date - say 1960, with a US pop of 180M which has grown to now to 340M and assume the utilization rate of boys in the US is down even by 50% (which I would not doubt for a minute), but that the utilization rate of ~380M Latin players has at least doubled, you've added 190 million in Latin America, and gone from 180 to half of 340 million= 170 million, I'd say it;s probable that MLB is still easily ahead of the game - without even considering Asia.

I only half agree. I think it does look pretty terrible when you have a sold out venue and the best seats in the house are sitting empty because some corp or high roller did show or is isn't interested enough in the game to watch. That's what lux boxes are for, the camera doesn't have to look at them. To me it's just another drip, drip of the social rot we live with. The rich waste stuff other people would love to use but we can't have that. Sure, its been the human condition since the Pharoahs but my baseball team doesn't have to rub my nose in it for 9 innings every night.

Someone up thread (Buddha?) noted that the Wings are caught in the mediocre middle. I think that is exactly the case. If they have to get worse in order to build the payroll space to do something a year or two further fine, but if I'm the Wings I want to stop spending money on stop gap guys because all it does is cut off options to make the kind of moves they have to make to get over the hump.

TL;DR version. They overpriced the seats.

LOL - didn't notice the wandering foul pole. But it goes to the main issue with AI, which is how do you verify reliability? With the image it's easy enough to tell it what it got wrong and let it use you as its auditor, but in some kind of complex analysis result where you want to use it exactly because you don't know the right answer from the wrong one, you are in a deeper dilemma.

with bumper pool sized cues. Actually not sure what Trump is assembling there. Maybe a two piece blow gun to dart Powell as he leaves the scene.

Top's not bad, but what's with the guy coming through wall below the grandstand? All look better than Chasfh's but for some season she's not in the batter's box in 3 of 4. If you think about it that's a funny error to make because there aren't going to be many training images of guys hitting standing on home plate to extrapolate from. Also curious how the dugout is or isn't there. What made it change its mind?

The Tigers do have a couple of hundred million to work with, they don't have to let let everyone walk. My strategy would be to try to lure pre or early arb guys into extending just 2 or 3 years past FA with big AAVs. I don't mind giving guys big money for their age ~26-31 seasons. But odds are you are going to be better off letting someone else pay for whatever else they do in their career after that. Maybe you let a guy go who plays to 40 and makes the HOF, but you will have avoided 10 other roster crippling mistakes. A lot of guys won't be amenable, but some will believe they will still have a big payday score remaining.

LOL - that is one messed up swing. STB was right handed, she does have the correct hand on top for a RH hitter, but if she's standing in the RH hitters box, who knows where her lead leg went, and she's looking at the umpire, who is about to get clocked in the noggin' by a high pitch the catcher apparently isn't going to come close to getting.

not the popular opinion but I wouldn't. To me his scoring is like a band-aid. The team is too deficient to have the luxury of a guy like Kane who doesn't do enough of the things they need to do better.

It wan't like they blew a lead in any of the games - although the Crow-Armstrong overrun was probably the biggest single screw-up of the series for either team.

I have NYT and WaPo via academic subscription which are discounted. NYT now asks me to upgrade on every login (You'll get 'Athletic' access, WooHoo!") so I have to close that dialog every time now.

I doubt if in the course of history, there has been any bigger impediment to progress and the improvement of the human condition than the enforcement of orthodoxy.

We subscribe to the Freep and MLive. Dropped DetNew this year for reasons that need not be stated here.

Leadership will help if the talent is there - McLellan argued the talent was there - I'm not so sure. We've just got too many guys with what are basically low hockey skill levels. Sure - they won some games over a medium stretch when the new coach showed up but I really think that was a mirage. Rasmussen hadn't turned into a better skater etc. The other frustrating thing was how the guys that went to the world games all came back flat.

Yup. I don't know if Hoerner meant it or not. He was sort reaching down, maybe to straighten his jersey even but regardless of why, he ended up facing the ump in what looked a lot like arms akimbo posture, and that is absolutely 'challenging' body language if that is what the ump saw too. Maybe Hoerner meant it or maybe it was an unintentional outcome, but that's what struck me immediately.

TBH - completely apart from any drama with Larkin, listening to McLellan, I think he'd prefer not to have any designated 'leaders' in the clubhouse at all. Listening to him I get the idea that he thinks that whole 'captain' deal gives the rest of the players too much of a pass for stepping up when they should/could. I guess the league says you are supposed to have a guy on the ice designated to talk to officials, but a team can rotate giving out Cs or As for each game to that end. IIRC the Wings did for while before they tabbed Larkin.

I had a sad moment on this topic today. I was listening to young volunteer from a non-profit: "Immigration Law and Justice Michigan" that provide low/no cost aid to people working immigration issues. They have credit size cards made up in several languages for people to carry so they know their rights if/when accosted by ICE. Nice idea in a saner world, but fat lot of good their rights are going to do them when ICE SOP today is basically put a bad over some poor soul's head and hog tie them into the hold of an airplane.

The thing that is so much fun about this team? In 90% of games played, whether we win or lose, we outplay the other team. We've had teams before that relied on brute force offense or just shutdown pitching, and we could win enough - but at the end of the game the highlight plays were usually by the other side. This team virtually always makes the smart play, they execute everything, take every base, they have some top level defenders in Meadows, Green, Dingler, Jake, Baez and the one OF that's not a great fielder does have a great arm. They play great baseball to watch. Now if we could just get Wenceel's baserunning fixed....

I like 7 hits from 3,4,5 much better than the other.

TTBNDS

Cramer only has one hand!?

TBH, I sort of doubt there is such a thing a management taking any professional athlete 'to the woodshed'. This isn't 1950 and the NHL isn't high school sports. He doesn't have to 'take' anything from management he doesn't care to. That's just a reality in modern pro sports. If Larkin has a fracture with the Wings I put the odds of him being back on his feet in another gig before the Wings turn it around as pretty good.

I don't see the trial as even the point. It's a question of whether what we are going to see is just a case of selective prosecution to try to justify the way this guy was denied due process, or whether he was ever high enough on anyone's food chain to merit anything more than ordinary deportation in a sane world. That's why the disposition of the jury matters. There will probably be enough technical violation for a jury to convict if they are disposed to, and given the kind of political polarization, some certainly will be. Whether that will be the same thing as justice being served is an open question.

well he did start out with too high a GB rate. So he has to find the optimum middle ground. This wasn't always his approach, it was a change that got him here, so that at least argues he has the capability to change again.