Brock Beauchamp

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.

I have more than doubts, I'd put 3:1 odds they can't deliver 400,000 quality vehicles in a 24 month period, much less a 12 or 18 month period. I'm in Tesla for the long haul so I'm more interested in controlled growth than I am an explosion in their stock price... Because explosions are often followed by implosions as the company spirals out of control.

I have some serious reservations about Tesla and I'm glad I invested a moderate amount (about $3k). I fear they could easily fall prey to being a victim of their own success. I was hoping the Model 3 would garner about 100k, maybe 150k, preorders. That's a promising number that doesn't involve insane ramping of production... But 400k? Jesus, what's the likelihood of Tesla delivering that number in a timely fashion? What's the likelihood the cars will be QUALITY when they ship the first 50, or even 100, thousand? I'm nervous they've bitten off more than they can chew.

Yeah, that's the logical course of action to take... It's not as if we don't know who Mauer is at this point. As an aging vet, it certainly won't hurt him to sit one game a week as you try out some of the younger players.

Agreed. If there's a block of five guys in the lineup that get on base 35% of the time, that lineup will score runs and wear down pitchers.

I don't understand the point of these posts. Mauer will not be benched in 2016. Everybody knows this to be the case. Besides, Mauer isn't exactly killing the team. His OBP is .370, second on the team behind Grossman (who still sits at a ridiculous .420 through 181 PAs).

I don't care about salary relief for Jepsen, as he's gone after this season anyway... We can only wish the same applied to Nolasco. Nolasco counts because his absence helps the 2017 roster in two ways: rotation space and money. The same *kinda* applies to Plouffe but unlike Nolasco, the Twins are under no obligation to Trevor for 2017. I'm okay if the Twins trade Santana, I'm okay if they keep him. He hasn't been great, he hasn't been terrible. There's always space in a rotation for ONE guy like that (the problem is the Twins often have 3-4 guys like that).

I don't count them, as it's likely neither will return anything other than cash.

No, that's my personal over/under happiness level, not what I expect Ryan to actually do.

Well said on all counts. If Ryan formed the team I wanted him to form, they *might* be 5-7 games better than they are today. Maybe. But that's still terrible. No one accounted for everybody on the team to step backward because that's not the king of thing anyone can account for realistically. It's also not my job to know all of these things... But if I could see glaring holes that weren't filled, inexplicable signings that didn't make sense given the roster construction, and the potential damage caused by violently playing MiLB ping pong with your best prospects, then damn it all Terry Ryan should have seen those things (times 10) and done something about it.

My over/under is three players traded. I'm happy at that point. Four or more and I'm . Two or less and I'm .

Imagine if everything else hadn't gone wrong.

Oh, sure. One could argue the problems started in the offseason - and I don't really disagree - but I understand how the Twins were hoping a young arm would rise through the minors and take the job. That was a risky plan but not an awful plan. The Twins were expected to be a bad team going into 2015. Well, as it turned out, they weren't a bad team and when unexpected things happen, the plan needs to change. When the Twins turned into a contender and the young arms weren't coming through the system, moves should have been made no later than the middle of June to address glaring problems we all could see. Instead, we got Jepsen on July 31st and Cotts at the end of August. Hell, had they just called up Oliveros (instead of putting him in the ****ing Rochester rotation), maybe things turn out a bit differently. Argh. I get mad just thinking about it.

I believe my comment was "too little, too late". The day Jespen was acquired, the Twins were in second place and eight games behind the Royals. Two months prior, they were in first place and half a game up on the Royals. During those two months, the Twins bullpen posted these numbers: June: 4.38 ERA, 78.0 IP, 6.1 K/9 July: 4.15 ERA, 69.1 IP, 7.0 K/9

Outside of timing, I think Ryan handled last deadline somewhat appropriately. The Twins were not a great team, as I said multiple times last June and July. But they were in the hunt. The way I saw it, any postseason appearance is something you pursue but given the weaknesses of the 2015 Twins, they weren't in a position to go all-out and trade significant pieces for a 2015 run (like, say, Kepler). Jepsen and Cotts were fine additions. My problem is that they each happened a month later than they needed to happen. The idea was fine; pick up enough pieces to stay in the race but don't overdo it. The execution was flawed because the bullpen needed help over a month before it received any (excluding the controversial move of shifting one of the team's better young starters to the bullpen).

You are correct. The two players make similar money, give or take $1m per year. Nolasco has 1.5 seasons left on his contract plus a buyout year. Santana has 2.5 seasons left on his contract plus a buyout year.

To be clear, I fully expected Sano to regress. I had his OPS over/under around .830, I think. But it was very disappointing to see him bounce around in the low .700s for the first six weeks of the season. It's also quite damning that his OPS has been on the upswing since they stopped telling him to put on an outfielder's glove.