ashbury

Good ol' Florimonster! Say, did he ever learn how to hit? Checking... no, no he did not. Good ol' Florimonster.

http://www.ladylike.hr/upload_data/site_photos/big1_4105815881031864942158179347_images.jpeg "I demand a hard drive, with five MEGA bytes of total storage, or the whole world goes byyyye... byyyye... in exactly..." (whispers) "what?" "Excuse me, generals. I meant to say, five GIGA bytes..." (whispers) "wait, seriously???" "I'm sorry, give me a moment while my associates... uh, five TERA by-...?" (whispers) "oh, give me a break, ssshhhh, they have those at frickin' Best Buy now?" "What about... five peta... bytes?... Peta? That would be what's extraordinarily expensive to acquire? Good. Yes, definitely. I want a hard drive with five PETA bytes. Mua ha ha ha ha ha hah!!!"

What Marlins prospects do we want? How about a three way trade, with the Twins breaking new ground by paying a majority of Puig's remaining contract in exchange for better prospects? Hey, a fan can dream. But, in this crazy world right now, the Twins have the most financial room of these three teams. Why not be the catalyst for two teams somewhat strapped for cash and "buy" a high end prospect, or more, for $17.5M plus their gratitude? I know, I know, these are my Twins I'm talking about...

/ One Trick Pony has one trick

That's quite a case of Hitch Hiker's Thumb. (Probably it's a related malady like Catcher's Thumb, that I never heard of.)

Put "media" in square brackets without the quotes, put the URL, put "/media" in brackets. It might have to be the normal YouTube URL rather than the .be variant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gORMNmZgE3E There is also the little square turquoise/white button at the top (third from left) of the editing tool, BBCode, that you can click for "Media", but I find it easier just to type the characters on the keyboard most times.

Fixed, now?

"Last year we'd end a game and it was, like, we're one game closer to the playoffs," he said. "This year, it was, we're one game closer to the end of the year, because you knew we were not going to make the playoffs. It was tough, it was not the same, I can tell you that." Worrisome. O'Rourke doesn't have the breadth of experience to make this quote a searing indictment. On its face, it hardly qualifies as more than "duh, what do you expect?" But it's a data point.

I'm confused about your writeup for Blankenhorn. At the top of his page you list him at 2B, which corresponds to the vast majority of the innings he played in 2016. But you have this paragraph: He has a plus arm that allowed him to make the transition from short to third without a glitch this season, getting high marks for his smooth hands and excellent reactions at the hot corner. I don't think he played but a handful of innings at short in 2015, and the comment doesn't read like a simple typo to read and move past. Is it recycled from a year ago?

Ash vs Evil Thread

FWIW there is a TD article, and a discussion thread in the Minor League forum.

Thread Poets Society

I could have not read a book in that time, staring at the blank four walls of my padded cell, and still been better off for it.

"You Know Who" also suffices.

^^^^ What he said.

Wow. His poor family.

My feeling, which I've never tried to study systematically, is that when teams trade for a stud prospect, they try to lessen the pressure on that player by making the trade be for other pieces who will help right away. That gives the team's marketing department something positive to say while the young guy is still developing. Supposing that the Twins could pry away Urias for Dozier plus ESan plus two good prospects, I'm not sure it would be good for Urias's development, unless he is of an extraordinary makeup. A lot of pressure on someone in his early twenties. Even though he does have a year under his belt now. So, as regards the AJ trade, I recall Liriano as the difficult piece to get the Giants to include. But he was not MLB ready, making his trade value lower, so it was possible to package him with other players for AJ. Nathan was available as a failed starter, and the Twins were not thinking outside the box to put him in the 'pen - the Giants had already done so for a year. It was a good trade for both sides, except the Giants bollixed up their end of the trade in conjunction with AJ's allegedly prickly personality. Getting a really good reliever with big league experience is a whale of a lot easier than getting a really good starter with big league experience. Nathan wasn't the centerpiece. Nathan was the marketing piece. He turned out well. As for going after the next Arrieta or Kluber, that's good too. An all-of-the-above strategy for finding talent is better than one true way. The problem with finding the next "pony in the pile" is that it consumes a lot of roster space, which in many ways is the ultimate scarce resource. You don't just find Arrieta and say "there, done", you acquire several like him continually and use the 25-man to sort things out. In fact, finding such guys was apparently Terry Ryan's fond dream with all his make-good contract offers, and whether by bad luck or bad design (signing rather than trading) or bad scouting it just never seemed to pay off for him.

You have ethical colleagues as moderators. / that, and there were no stakes that I can recall

FTFY

Dozier for anyone like De Leon (or, I can dream, Urias), on the 40-man, should be a non-event for their roster management. This must be something else?

FTFY.

The panel would also have accepted "during". But yours is the canonical answer.

As I said, I am willing to trade from excess. I just feel we are several months away from knowing this, with regard to starting pitching. Hughes' recovery from surgery is not a lock, for instance. With those additional months, we might have a clearer idea who the excess actually is.

I am gonna need to see a second source, to believe a far-out rumor like that.