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It's generally accepted that the Tigers offered the most money to Bregman last winter, which is the thing many people claim all the time is all it takes to get these greedy bastards to sign on the line that is dotted. 😁

I'm out of reactions today, but Like

Getting back to the hot topic at hand: can I just tell you how surprised I am that MAGA has not simply dismissed the trove of Epstein emails Democrats have released as being a forgery? I mean, how easy would it be to claim that Democrats doctored the documents to remove Clinton's name and add Trump's? Red hats would totally, absolutely, 100% buy that, and it also would sow enough confusion in the marketplace of ideas that independents, uncommitteds, and apathetics would throw up their hands and bail on the story not knowing what to believe. So why aren't the Republicans selling that? And why aren't they releasing doctored documents of their own that removes Trump's name and adds, I don't know, Obama or Pelosi or Newsom or Jeffries or somebody? I know that's a complex job, but I mean, come on, Russia does this **** all the time. They practically invented it! Is someone in St Petersburg asleep at the switch or something?

Man, is this ever ballsy. Tell you what: if the courts see fit to strike down the voter-approved redistricting plan in California while simultaneously upholding all the legislator-drive redistricting plans in all the red states, we are truly good and ****ed. Because at that point everything will be all but officially in the bag for the Republicans to finally realize their goal of make America a one-party fascist state, like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or the Jim Crow South.

That's why I posted this back in June!

I'm out of reactions today, but Like. Did you know "Barely Legal" is still being published as a magazine by the Larry Flynt people? Unreal!

So I found the positional adjustment article on Fangraphs. They estimated at the time the various positions have the following positional run adjustments: Position Full Season Adjustment C 12.5 1B -12.5 2B 2.5 SS 7.5 3B 2.5 LF -7.5 CF 2.5 RF -7.5 Total 0.0 You can see how it all evens out among the eight positions. (Not sure why the P position is not covered here, but, some other time.) So assuming this table is correct, if two players each save 10 runs above average at their positions with their defense, if one is a first baseman, his fielding run value is 10 + -12.5 = -2.5 defensive runs overall, and if he is a center fielder, his fielding run value is 10 + 7.5 = +17.5 defensive runs overall. I guess the idea is that because first base is so much easier than center field, the former is expected to not make mistakes and lose runs with his defense versus a center fielder, which is so much more difficult to play. This would suggest that even a slightly above average first baseman (a couple runs more than 0 runs saved) loses runs overall with his defense for the team, because that's the nature of first base; and that even as a slightly below average center fielder (a couple runs less than 0 runs saved) would still produce a net gain of fielding run value for his team. Am I on track so far? Or off track? Please remember I not concerned about how the theoretical mathematical formulas work as I am trying to comport the data we have to reflect what's happening on the field itself.

lol, if you say so! Although you gotta admit it's hard to not take something seriously when someone prefaces it with "but seriously". I wasn't trying the condescend to you or insult you. I'm sorry you took it that way, honestly. I'm not taking it back, of course, because I meant what I said. I'm just saying the intention was simply to put across my idea, not to insult you. If my intention was to insult you, you would definitely know it. 😁 I meant it because if you encountered actual people of color with modest means on a regular basis, you would not have used the sweeping generalization that entire ethnic groups bypass what the rest of us (?) consider standard government practices such as obtaining an ID. I'm just here to tell you from firsthand experience that most of the people I see on a regular basis take a lot of pride in the way they are navigating their lives despite the lack of resources and the apparent apathy of various systems seemingly designed to thwart them (as well as actual antipathy from the federal government). All they really want is for the system to recognize and respect them as citizens so they can participate in it fully. Yes, a few of my clients have checked out as you implied. They are a tiny minority of the people, barely double digit percent if that, and 100% of my clients are all in dire need of pantry assistance, especially since SNAP is being simultaneously dangled in front of them and then snatched away. No matter how hard things get, people still have faith. Ever hear the James Brown song, "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I'll Get It Myself)"? That's it. That's the whole ball of wax right there. And yet: so many of them still believe things can change, for the better, with different leaders. I can only admire the tenacity of that belief considering the centuries of evidence piled up against it.

Q: How can you tell someone is a Detroiter? A: They can't imagine anyone who could afford not to would ever live in any actual city. 😉 I jest, really I do, but there might be a kernel of truth to that. I remember the first time I went to Minneapolis in the late 80s—I had not even traveled much beyond Detroit let alone live elsewhere yet—and was just knocked that this beautiful neighborhood I was passing through which had huge homes near a gorgeous park with a pristine lake was in the actual city of Minneapolis. I had grown up believing central cities could never be anything but wall-to-wall "ghettos". That's not you, obviously. I suspect you do not believe that's the case. But beyond that, I would wager that the vast majority of big league ballplayers live in kickass apartments or rented homes located within walking distance from the ballpark. I briefly met Zach McKinstry earlier this year—really nice kid—and he said he and a few of the other guys lived about a mile away, and he pointed toward northeast from the ballpark up Gratiot or Jefferson or so. I think a lot of it is, most ballplayers don't make enough money or have the locational security to throw down roots in a Bloomfield Hills or a Winnetka or a Scarsdale or whatever. Most ballplayers don't stay with the same team for years on end, or else stay in the majors from year to year or even month to month. There's also the potential to get traded, DFA'ed, or released with the first really bad stretch, which could be essentially career-ending. And almost all of them have permanent homes elsewhere, including guys with long-term deals, either where they grew up, or in Arizona or Florida. I'm pretty sure gone are the days when a team consisting of Lolich and Horton and Freehan and Stanley and Kaline and Northrup all throw down roots for good in the city they play. When was the last guy the Tigers signed to a long term contract who kept living in Detroit during the winter as well? I know Cabrera bought in Bloomfield, but (1) he also didn't stay during the winter; and (2) that was over 15 years ago, and things are different now when it comes to the perception of living in cities, and when it comes to that, certain cities have substantial advantages over others. I believe the trump card to play here is, if the Tigers offer the most money, they'll come to play here. And that's true to some degree. But as Alex Bregman demonstrated last winter, that's not true always.

It sure doesn't. This is the direct result of the changing of the media landscape from legacy media having a right to cover sports as news to legacy media depends on access to the talent. Sports used to need the media to help sell their product. Now that every sport has direct access to fans through their own media channels, they have zero need for newspapers or legacy broadcast to cover them.

OK, that's the end of that.

This, from the article: OK, so a couple things: Newsflash, Megyn: 15 years old is not "barely legal". Also, newsflash: even when rhetorically comparing it to five or eight or ten or even "under 14", 15 years old is still not OK. I have trouble seeing how she is going to get out of this minefield unscathed, even in MAGA world.

Remember when we all thought Megyn was crossing over into ranged thinking? Ah, good times ...

If she's not, she is at least part of the shrinkage.

Wow, now that's one I had to look up. And while I was reading the article attendant to it, I came across another new one that's probably more accurate for our commander in chief: "hebephile."

Yes. And ... ?

I would not be opposed to picking up Nolan Arenado for the next two years.

I'm already familiar with the idea of the defensive spectrum. I'm asking why you think the subtraction from first base position is rendered in defensive runs.

The ship sailed on baseball media as journalism a long, long, long time ago.

This occurs to me for the first time: what are the chances JD was chosen as vice president in part to shut him up on this topic? Who else in the party was yammering on about this topic to the same length?

Trump got 99 people who'll dive on a live grenade for him and a bitch ain't one.

Huh. And here I was totally conceding that Clinton had likely gone there, too.

They do have an advantage the Democrats don't, though: a third of everyone in the country will believe Trump's words over their own lying debit cards.

Another thing to note here is that, grains of salt taken with any email from Epstein notwithstanding, criminals don't lie when they talk about being criminals. They lie when they say they're not criminals.

Oh, wow, this email just re-outed Celina Midelfart as being a girl in Epstein’s orbit, and there is a digital paper trail connecting her to both Epstein and Trump: https://www.thelist.com/1825630/donald-trump-forgotten-girlfriend-reportedly-had-ties-to-epstein/ She is an heir to a cosmetics business and was a “girlfriend” of Norway’s crown prince in the early 90s. Hmm, wonder how they met?