PseudoSABR

No worries. I wouldn't be surprised if a Reality Show emerged following his exploits practicing baseball and auditioning for teams, whether or not it's ultimately successful. The Manziel-Tebow comparison is eerie given how differently their characters are perceived, yet I agree with you.

It's not that. I was worried it might be a promotional stunt. For not being very good professional athlete, Tebow sure has gotten lots of attention. (Probably due to appeal to both the reverent and irreverent, to be fair).

http://i.imgur.com/C2mpWa1.jpg

Sigh.

Kepler and Mauer share honors. Sappy, enjoyable interview video at the link (third video).

I think he must have found the right guy for the job, because he was actually likable and informative during last year's playoff coverage. I think he finally figured out, he should stick to be baseball, and give up the need to be a celebrity.

He'll still win Oklahoma, but Tulsa World for the first time since 1940 failed to endorse the Republican Candidate for president.

Oh I know what you meant, and concede your point. That Bachmann who had gained national celebrity went so far right as to lose her district within a decade speaks to what lurching to the right does to even the most conservative candidates in the most conservative districts.

The truth of this statement is as absurd as it is dismaying. I hope there comes a day where we never refer to candidate's "only" fourth election to Congress....

Right; but here's your hawkish Republican candidate, we already have the Libertarian candidate; now we just need a social conservative candidate to give GOP voters choices that fit their defining ideology. I don't know how many of these such candidates will get on the ballots in the various states, but that this candidate exists at all isn't good for Mr. Trump. And how about that new Mammouth poll, which 538 rates as an A+? Again, not a guarantee of anything, but the more distance away from conventions and last weeks controversies don't necessarily seem to be favoring Trump in the way one would expect. But, of course, we'll see.

Former CIA Agent and Anti-Trump Republican launches independent bid.

Montana is fairly libertarian; I think they have/had a Democratic governor currently/recently. Obama won an electoral district in Nebraska in 2008 (weird rules that Nebraska isn't winner take all).

Arod gets released/retires, insignificantly.

You mean the home defense device?

I'm elated to learn a new word which encapsules the very opposite of my current feeling.

I didn't pick seven percent at random or because it benefited my argument. I used the quoted upper limit to demonstrate the conservativeness of such a prediction. The point isn't that seven or eight percent is a lot, or a landslide, rather that under conditions that seemed relatively uncontroversial in comparison, long-successful, nationally well-liked politicians lost by such a margin. The tea leaves, now, suggest Trump could lose by a landslide, even historic margins. I acknowledge that there's three months left, but I can't recall a single candidate (in my lifetime) being behind in the polls so soon after the conventions without significant non-campaign, non-candidate factors in play. Of course, a disaster or a scandal could change everything; but it looks far more bleak for Trump than it ever did for Romney or McCain...

I tend to agree. I think Texas emergent Hispanic population, libertarian streak, and Austin (and other urban center) liberal stronghold(s) will push Texas away from Reliably Republican sooner rather than later. Though probably not this election with Clinton. I could see Johnson doing very well in states like Texas, Arizona, Utah, and Montana, enough so to give even Clinton a chance of winning them.

Obama won by 3.9% in 2012. Obama won by 7.2% in 2008. Bush won by 2.4% in 2004. Bush 'won' by -.5% in 2000. Clinton won by 8.5% in 1996 (Perot got 8.4%) Clinton won by 5.6% in 1992 (Perot got 18.9%) Bush won by 7.8% in 1988. Reagan won by 18.2% in 1984. Reagan won by 9.7 % in 1980 (Lucey got 6.6%) (source wiki pages; too lazy to link to each one; this atlas thingy is fun to play with though). I'm not sure why people are being so conservative with the margin that Trump could lose by, given the recent history of the actual margins. Romney v. Obama is the third closest election since the 1980. Five of the last nine elections have been decided by more than seven percent, with seemingly non-crazy options.

A new McClatchy-Marist poll shows Clinton up by 15 points head to head, and 14 points in a four way race. Her lead in the same poll a month ago was 3 points. This is just one poll, but it gives further indication of just how poorly Trump might preform this November.

This isn't totally unreasonable, but Nolasco isn't just bad for his contract, he's just plain bad. Arguably he has negative value. There's a few too many ifs for me in your last full paragraph (on Meyer): we can't really set Busenitz aside as he arguably has the same value as Meyer's, though with a lower ceiling; nor can we assume that Meyer's health will turn out to be clean. I mean, if we don't consider the other prospect in the trade, and assume the prospect we traded away was healthy, there might be five million in value that the Twins gave up. It seems like you're playing out best-case scenarios for the Angels/worst-case for the Twins; conversely, I think the best-case-scenario for the Twins/worst-case scenario for the Angels is simply far more likely to occur.

Well, right. Santiago has been (a lot) more valuable than Nolasco over that trend, no? Putting the Angels aside, do you think other teams really think Santiago and Nolasco+4mil have similar values? I just don't, at all. Santiago is a legitimate back of the rotation piece, Nolasco is the worst qualifying pitcher in the league over the past several years (I recall reading that somewhere) or short of that below replacement level.

If the trend lines continue, Santiago will fetch far more than Nolasco. I just don't think there's a lot of controversy in that assertion, and obviously its contingent on Santiago far-out performing his peripherals and Nolasco far under performing them. I still can't believe Nolasco was traded at all; I think you're obscuring just how much of negative-value asset Nolasco really has been, regardless of how mediocre Santiago is or ends up being. Let me put it this way, the deal at best, and in my opinion, was a coup, at worst, its a net-win. I get that you wouldn't put it that way, but the basis for that seems semantical rather than factual. My using net-win in my previous post is to demonstrate that we're really on the same page, and it's not worth parsing out why we necessarily shouldn't be that optimistic. I apologize for the mocking tone, it's a defense against what seemed like fastidious and pernickety argument, which--not trying to lump you in--occurs often around here.

The Twins deserve credit for putting themselves in a better situation; whether Santiago will clearly get more value than Nolasco+4million isn't the point, it's that the Twins have the options of 1) moving on from Santiago (say if they value him as lowly as Nolasco or he implodes) by non-tendering him, 2) getting Santiago's production over Nolasco in 2017, which at this point is likely to be (much) better, and letting him walk without any vesting-player options to worry about, or 3) trade him over the winter or during next season at values equal to Santiago's production. That's flexibility and it's worth a lot given how little you had in Nolasco. Similar situation with Busenitz in that they can choose to add him to the 40-man or risk exposing him during the Rule 5 draft as opposed to the inflexibility offered by Meyer in that he's already on the 40-man and he's out of options next year. Of course, no one is advocating a binary-or-death analysis here. But there's nuance and then there's cynically construing the facts. We can hypothesize how this trade ends up a loss for the Twins in the future, but given the current value of the players involved and the added flexibility the Twins get, is it really worth rebutting that this is a net-win for the Twins? It seems a bit belabored to point out that Santiago isn't guaranteed to fetch better value in the future (no one debates this lack of guarantee) or that we only gain one 40-man spot in added flexibility.

That the Angel's believed he had value or was worth Santiago (and acquiring Nolasco) doesn't really mean he generally had much value, right? Shoulder injuries, age, and lack of recent, sustained success point towards nominal value. In any case, according to one writer at Fangraphs Meyer has as much future value as Busenitz. And are you really suggesting that the Twins could get more for Nolasco than Santiago at next year's deadline? Really? That's what you're going with? You could have just said this instead of picking nits.

No offense, but there seems to be a bit of confirmation bias going on throughout your post. You start with the assumption that the Twins are trading with the purpose of being competitive next year, and your analysis and conclusions lean heavily in that favor without really considering the evidence that points to the contrary view. Mejia, Light, and Busenitz are all under team control for six years; that they might be useful in 2017 isn't indicative of the view that the Twins are hellbent on competing next year; rather it's an indication that there's less variance in such players as they are closer to the majors. Low A guys are more sexy I suppose, but AAA/AA prospects have far better opportunity to contribute in the near and LONG term future. Turning two relatively no-value-or-NEGATIVE-value assets into Santiago (and Besenitz) is a coup. Santiago is an asset, Nolasco was not. Santiago at worse can be non-tendered this year. If he produces next year and the team struggles, he can be traded as a rental at the deadline, likely to fetch far more value than Nolasco would in his place. And whether we want to acknowledge it or not, we still need starting pitchers to bridge the gap to the talent that has only briefly appeared in AA. There's simply nothing short sighted about flipping Nolasco for Santiago, because you flipped a negative-asset for a potentially low-risk positive asset. The sad truth of this deadline is that the Twins really didn't have that many valuable assets to trade, if you were expecting better deals than the one's we got, I think you overvalued Nunez, Nolasco, Meyer, and Abad. I agree, I was also disappointed to see Suzuki not get traded, but I don't agree on Santana.