chasfh

Alternate take: They want to assure that independents can feel good about voting Republican again.

Dream on, Eddie. They'd never sell alternates at the Pro Shop on game day that way.

I have been repeatedly assured told that you can never have too much starting pitching. I can only assume they mean that "literally" in a literal sense, and not "literally" in a figurative sense.

That's how it usually happens, all right.

I'm thinking more in the eyes of a reasonable voting person, someone in between, say, first and fifth quintile extremes, if you can imagine such a thing as being measurable, which I grant it's not.

I think we are seeing that with this president and this Court, the Constitution is negotiable.

Notable that this ran in the Murdoch Post. On the one hand, you could argue that it's very unusual for them to run a story that makes MAGA and red hats look as bad as this. On the other hand, it could be argued that running this story on a website beloved by red hats is that it's giving them all but explicit permission to murder people who don't like Trump, even family members who know how to get all dolled up, because, as you can see, they're going to get away with it as long as they do it in the right place.

Harris fail. 😁

Well, the motives here aren't suspicious at all ...

Yeaaaaah, it's gonna happen, god damn it ... Although if I am reading the "leak" tweet from the Tigers right, there are going to be two colors, including navy blue. Well, the traditional look was nice while it lasted, but I guess the kids were always gonna end up winning that battle.

S***! Please tell me these are new City Connects and not standard colored alternates they will be wearing throughout the week at home and on the road. Oh, who am I kidding? That ship was always going to sail at some point. It's just a bummer that I had to live to see it.

My post contemplates only the thinness of the case for Mize deserving his 2025 All-Star bid. I contend that even though Mize was on the All-Star team, his season fell short of being what is reasonably considered All-Star level.

Honest question: is there a historical case that winning parties ended up changing their policies in the wake of a significant third party vote tally? I don't know either way.

OK, but stepping back from the very-specific, very-rare-as-to-be-practically-non-existent spouse-killing scenario, I myself believe there's a difference between voting third party because the positions of both major candidates are complete anathema to everyday life that would bring active harm to you, versus voting third party because even though you would be fine with one of the major candidates' winning, the third party guy is only marginally better than the major, or has a position you like the major doesn't that doesn't involve killing your spouse. In this case I could see the position that in the latter case, it would be better to set aside the slight preference of the third party guy in favor of the guy you would accept if he won instead, while in the former case, a third party vote is very defensible. Would like your take on this.

As would your recent advice that the voter just stay home if they're not going to vote for one of the two front-running horses. Both voting for the third party guy and staying home yield the same result for the two horses. So what is it we really talking about here?

Both, and more.

We are in danger of tipping over to the point to which this will never matter ever again.

This would be the highest-value opportunity for Republicans to kill off the filibuster once and for all.

The gambling craze in this country is even more out of control.

Also, while it's true Mize was named to the All-Star team, it was not necessatily because he was having a transcendent season. First of all, Mize wasn't even one of the 59 qualified pitchers in baseball by July 15. He'd pitched 88 innings by then; a qualified pitcher would have pitched 96 innings. But even if we widen the qualifying lens out to 81 innings, which results in 96 [ninety-six] pitchers, Casey would have ranked 50th in WAR, 31st in ERA, 32nd in ERA-, 44th in FIP, 45th in FIP-, 17th in xERA (pretty good), 47th in xFIP, and 43rd in xFIP-. Aside from the outlier xERA number, this is a solidly 50th to 60th percentile pitcher among all such qualifiers, not a top-of-the-league All-Star. There are two reasons Casey was named to the All-Star team: (1) he had a 9-3 record, one of only 18 guys with nine-plus wins, thirteen of whom were named All-Stars; and (2) his team had the best winning percentage in baseball, good enough to yield six All-Stars, including Zach McStinky, of all people.

OK, so, in tiger2022's defense, I do believe many people, including in the baseball media, are expecting (a step up from "hoping") that Verlander will deliver a solid WAR-positive 30+ starts for the Tigers. And yes, that could happen. He did have a solid Verlander-like final two months last season. he placed 14th of 54 qualifiers in ERA- and FIP- In August and September, although he did place 35th in xFIP, which is a reddish-pink flag. So, he wasn't super dominant, and his results were a bit lucky. Stick around long enough, and every player will fall off the cliff eventually in a career-ending way. The chances that happens to Verlander in 2026 are fairly high. Flip side, Verlander is already a freak of nature and he could also potentially have a whole year that is close to what he did last August and September, which could make him a solidly mid-rotation guy. Anything better than that would probably be into the upper-90th percentile of expected outcomes.

But do you really have to come here and bore the rest of us? 😉

Receipts?

Happy birthday, Abe!

I think the rush of Independents off the sidelines is going to more than make up for the 30 or 35 votes Hasan might cost the Democrats.