Brock Beauchamp

This video is killing me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRp1CK_X_Yw

It's painfully apparent Wells Fargo knew damned well what was happening. The "5300 employees acting independently" line didn't pass the smell test right off the bat. Now we're hearing reports of whistleblowers being fired for speaking out. If you're a WF customer, it might be time to go find a new bank. http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/21/investing/wells-fargo-fired-workers-retaliation-fake-accounts/index.html

Sure, the market is more limited for Dozier but I was only trying to point out that in pure value, Dozier is borderline elite. Do I expect him to return a blockbuster on the lines of Shields? No, but to suggest he's worth veterans and maybe a few middling prospects is insanity. And while Myers was a corner bat, he was also the fourth ranked prospect in all of baseball at the time. I haven't seen anyone predict a top 15 prospect in return for Dozier, much less one of the five best guys in the minors. Most targets seem to hover in the 25-50 range, much lower than Myers. Anyway, my point is that five win players don't grow on trees.

It fascinates me people think Dozier isn't worth much in trade. Dozier has three full seasons since his breakout in May of 2013. Combined, those three seasons have been worth ~14.5 fWAR. That's just shy of 5 fWAR per season. Dozier is owed $15m for two seasons of control. Based on his fWAR numbers, the receiving team can expect roughly $3-4m/fWAR over two years. If Dozier isn't worth much, who is? Dozier is a perfect trade candidate for several reasons. He's under team control for two seasons, his contract is ridiculously underpriced, and he's just leaving his prime years and shouldn't expect a huge drop in performance. Brian is the perfect candidate for a team that needs "one last piece" to push them over the top. He gives that team a two year window without blowing the budget. Sure, it's great to get a 5+ year player but at what cost? Never mind that you're committing to someone who might be terrible in years three, four, and five. Dozier is a great balance of risk and reward for a team looking to blow open their contention window for two seasons. The Royals paid a steep price for Shields (and Davis, but let's focus on Shields for a moment). Kansas City received two years of Shields and paid him $22.5m, $7.5m more than will be owed Dozier. While fWAR certainly doesn't translate at a perfect 1:1 ratio for pitchers/hitters, Dozier has been worth more over the past three seasons than Shields was in his previous three seasons with the Rays. Oh, and Dozier is a year younger than Shields was at the time of the trade. Yet Shields was a "holy crap, win now" move while Dozier is "eh, whatever, I suppose he's worth something".

I'm tired of politicians overlooking the criminality of the third amendment. Housing for all!

I imagine several teams would take a flyer on him, they simply wouldn't pay anything to do it. Look at the Meyer/Nolasco trade. Teams will take on money for modest upside. In Park's case, the money is virtually nothing. Literally 1.25% of payroll for a team like the Dodgers.

Oh, not speaking about his current back ailment. I was speaking in regards to his recent elbow issue that stuck him back at DH for a few weeks.

I'm becoming less convinced Sano should get a chance to stick at third with each recurring elbow setback. But I won't get too upset however the medical staff rules on the subject.

Probably a bit more than the Dodgers will give but that's the sort of deal the Twins should target.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to see the new front office trade Park this offseason just to remove him from the equation. The return would be minimal but it's the kind of thing new regimes do: remove questionable players to clear room for their own roster strategy. In short, I'm not worried about Park/Vargas playing time.

I generally agree, though I didn't have problems with Miggy winning MVP in his triple crown season. It was the first time an AL player did it in 50-60 years. That's kind of a big deal. But mostly, yeah, Trout. He's the best position player in baseball.

I don't understand why Mauer is starting games in September. He was injured, then "healthy", and hasn't been performing well in quite some time. Let the guy sit and catch his breath. It doesn't matter anyway. He's going to get paid and the Twins will have an opportunity to look at some other guys with more frequency. Man, the entire situation around Mauer is such a bummer. It looked like he might be on the verge of a small rebound earlier this season; his peripherals looked wildly different, he was seeing the ball, and he was making classic Mauer contact. Sure, he's a diminished player at this point but I thought there was a glimmer of a chance we could see him post a .780-.800 season once or twice more before he retires.

I don't think it would matter much. There are big differences between how people view the Most "Valuable" Player and mostly, I'm okay with it. Do RBI count? I'm fine if they do. They were things that happened, runs were scored. To an extent, the same goes for Runs. Does a winning team matter? I'm fine with that, too. I don't think it should be the be-all, end-all factor but if it plays a part in the decision, whatever. WAR or traditional stats? Eh, whatever. I lean toward advanced metrics but there's *some* merit to the old school metrics, too. At least in the case of deciding who had the largest positive impact on their team's season, anyway. When you get right down to it, I don't have a problem with most award winners unless you get into the ridiculous territory of Bartolo Colon winning over Johan Santana simply because he did really well in one statistic, a mostly useless statistic at that. But that happened a long time ago and I think we've moved on to smarter decisions since that point.

I'm seeing a lot of herp-derp on Twitter about Dozier and the MVP. Personally, I think he's a decent candidate but hasn't posted the numbers nor had a respectable team behind him, which puts him behind a half-dozen or so candidates. Ultimately, I think Dozier gets a few votes and finishes somewhere just outside the top five. At least that's where I'd put him this season.

I've had the same internal debate several times and yeah, Hillary wins every time and it's not close. A Trump/Pence presidency is just too dangerous.

The primary purchase when I moved to dividend stocks was GM. I think I put in something like $5k. The stock has been neutral for me but I've received three dividend payments from it, I think.

I considered a similar move, though I've been in T-Mobile for 3-ish years so I figure I have my telecom bases covered with them. No dividend but they continue to grow at a much greater rate than other carriers, which has led to a 70% gain in the three years since I bought into the stock.

To absorb a bit of risk in my tech stocks - Amazon, Google, Netflix, Square, Facebook, Tesla, etc. - I've been putting more money into dividend stocks over the past year. I'm to the point now where I receive ~$1000/yr in dividends. Maybe more, I haven't really added them together in awhile.

Took a small risk and dropped $1200 more into Polaris. Their stock dropped roughly 20% over the past month due to a recall, which forced a pretty severe adjustment to their upcoming quarterly report, and stagnating sales in the ATV segment, their primary profit center. But they pay a solid dividend, a 3% yearly yield, and their motorcycle division continues to impress. Overall, I think they'll be back to that $90-ish mark within a year or two.

I watched the first episode of Fleabag last night (British show, available on Amazon) and it was quite good. A bit like You're the Worst but not quite as charming, though it's hard to see where it's going with just one episode. I also watched the pilot of The Tick. It's acceptable, though mainly it made me really miss Warburton and his criminally short run in the role.

Were that technically possible, it would have been done ages ago. I'd LOVE to have that feature but it would require the entire code base to be dismantled and rebuilt.

I did the same thing.

We know for sure they scanned the media guide.

I believe this is the case but teams are generally open to allowing their candidates to interview and accept higher level positions when offered. Doing otherwise would be very off-putting to the best and brightest candidates. If the smartest person you hire doesn't believe they will have a fair chance to move upward when the opportunity arises, they'll probably accept a position with another team that allows them to do so.

I thought about the search firm thing. It's entirely possible the search firm is outlining a basic list of talking points and one of them is raising a red flag with candidates... For example, "Paul Molitor is our manager in 2017". I doubt that would even be that off-putting - after all, a POBO position is a long-term deal and Molitor is under contract for just one more season - but it's just an example. There could be any number of things that dissuades a candidate from even hearing out the other side.