Brock Beauchamp

I just don't know about next year, which is why I'd strongly consider hedging the Dozier and Santana bets until next July (but, again, if the offer is generous you take it...). People watched the first half Twins stumble and bumble their way to one of the worst records in baseball. It was awful. Well, there's still half a season left to be played. What happens if the Twins play a second half with a healthy Sano, an emergent Kepler, and a steadily improving Buxton? What if Berrios comes up in two weeks and posts league average numbers? What if the season closes out with a .500 record in the second half? At that point, do we still consider the 2017 Twins a failure before the offseason begins? I don't believe I'm ready to make that call. But, again, any and all offers should be heard. If the offer is good, Ryan should take it. I'm skeptical the 2017 team will be able to contend but I also think it's foolish to write off their contention in July of 2016.

Yep. Average pitchers don't pitch only average starts. They pitch phenomenal starts and they pitch clunker starts, often stringing together one or the other for brief periods of time.

The Twins have a glut of mid-level prospects coming through the system (and will add more next June). If that's all they can get for Santana, they should keep him. If they can't get at least a top 75-100 guy relatively close to the majors, I don't really see the point in trading Ervin. He's not the problem in the Twins rotation; once Nolasco and Milone are cleared out of town, there's plenty of space for the youngsters in the rotation.

I doubt Molitor sends signals to Mauer when to swing.

I spend most work days actively working on company projects.

Well played. Both you and Schaefer.

Ick. That's all I can say. Ick.

Bah. It's a nice night to spend a bunch of long innings out on the mound. Basically a vacation.

I thought the same. As long as the kid isn't striking out, I'm okay with it.

Tuesday.

I just noticed TD passed 500,000 posts.

That's what happens when the team ends the first half with a 1-80 record.

All of you are only pawns in game of life.

It's absolutely necessary because reasons.

I have to say that the iPad multitasking with the MLB app is pretty outstanding. I can listen to the game, participate on the forums, and check in with just a swipe.

I could be wrong but I think GM has a higher dividend. I invested in GM about a year ago... Static stock price, nice dividend.

I think it's a byproduct of a few things: 1. Apple has more money than they know what to do with... No point in leaving it in a bank to waste away. 2. Apple is too stringent with their purchases of other companies (as I pointed out in a later thread). 3. A nice byproduct of investing in yourself is that your stock is unlikely to be as affected by market fluctuations and it shows stability. 4. Apple, at least outwardly, has lacked imagination since Jobs died and doesn't have enough good ideas to consume all that money in R&D (though their R&D expenditures have exploded in recent years). Mostly, I think it's number one. It's mind-boggling when you realize that Apple has enough money to pay for 80% of Amazon's market capitalization in cash.

And by the way, those numbers are just to get a good, but not spectacular, kinda upper end but not mind-blowing game out the door. There are many games that have cost well over $100,000,000 to develop in the past five years.

The biggest problem facing gaming - and it's been this way for a decade now - is spiraling costs of development. A top-shelf Playstation game (mid-90s) cost, say, $200,000 to build. A top-shelf Playstation 2 game (early 2000s) cost, say, $1,000,000 to build. A top-shelf Playstation 3 game (mid 2000s) cost, say, $10,000,000 to build. A top shelf Playstation 4 game (today) costs, say, $50,000,000 to build. You can see the problem here.

Hardcore gamers. And hardcore gamers are mostly mixed on VR. Hardcore gamers can't support a real market, either. It doesn't help that VR is currently in the midst of 3-4 companies all trying to push a proprietary format... That's going to stall out VR for at least half a decade, maybe forever. A small, dedicated market can't support 3-4 companies vying for attention with no interoperability. Whoever wins VR can turn a tidy profit but when companies like Facebook, Sony, and Microsoft are the players in question, I won't even wager a guess who wins that battle (though I think Facebook is currently positioned well).

Another thing to consider is that we don't even know what services Apple is working on right now. They play things so close to the vest that it appears they're doing nothing much of the time. For example, Google and Facebook are in the middle of a well-known deep learning battle. It's all over the news... But where's Apple? Dunno, but it's been mentioned (in a roundabout Apple sort of way) that they're also working on deep learning and have been for years... They're just not telling anyone about it. Apple only announces things when they work on Apple products. Unlike Google or Facebook, who want people to work with their deep learning systems and improve them, Apple only wants their deep learning project to work on Apple devices (again, they're a hardware company) so they have no reason to let anyone know about the project until Tim Cook is onstage, telling us how much better Software X makes This Gadget You Need To Buy.

I'd be more inclined to agree if Apple operated like Google or Microsoft: 1. Buy company 2. Integrate company into your services but allow them to continue operating (mostly) as-is 3. See (relatively small by comparison) profit! Apple doesn't do that. If they buy a company, they fold them into Apple as completely as possible. They often disband the company altogether, keeping only the pieces that will serve Apple's needs. It's how Apple lost out to Google during the bidding war for Waze. Beats is a good example of this. Beats was a hardware company, which fit Apple's strategy. So Beats headphones stayed and continued as-is... But Beats Music? No, Apple don't play that game. They took the pieces of Beats Music they liked, folded it into the company completely, and it reemerged as Apple Music.

Well, not really... Their margins are still best in the business. They saw a slight, temporary dip as they released the SE - a lower margin phone - but that should help buoy them in emerging markets where they need to entrench themselves (as they're attempting to do in India now and have already done in China). The biggest problem facing Apple is saturation and phone hardware... As the phone market matures, phones will continue to last longer and longer... So Apple needs to open new markets. The problem is that there aren't any significant markets to open, at least not as far as I can see. Watches are a hobby and unless something radical happens, will never be the "next big thing". TV is intriguing but it will never be a power player for Apple (or anyone, really) because the set-top boxes are cheap and last forever... Though the FCC's new strategy of forcing an open standard on all cable providers - allowing AppleTV, Roku, etc. to become the default box for all things TV - could really boost the market. Virtual reality is a lulz market. It has cool features and can do amazing things but it's going to be a niche for at least five years, probably more like a decade. Consumers are suffering gadget exhaustion and they're not going to drop a grand to strap a video game machine to their noggins. VR needs to step into "must have and affordable" territory and I don't see it happening. Apple's next big gain/loss will come from their auto project. Everything else will keep them raking in cash hand over fist but the cash flow will be mostly flat. Apple has several solid markets that will keep them very profitable: phones, tablets, Macs, watches, and TV boxes. I don't see big growth in any of those markets (and some will decline) but none of them are poised to fall off the Earth, either.

I'm also sticking with Apple. I've taken a hit in the past year but made quite a bit before then... Picked them up around $70/share. And they've been paying me dividends for 3+ years. I don't plan to reevaluate them until their auto project is closer to fruition.

Yeah, that's an insane return rate. I was able to pull 25-30% for two years on my own but to sustain that kind of growth when the market isn't a bull is... Amazing, really.