PseudoSABR

Proper people use two spaces after the period, Brock. It's always been an issue for me (using chrome). But now I've figured out a fix. Just hit return, instead of the space bar. Look at those rivers of white space!

Without the interests that beset our world the solution is simple: socialize/nationalize specific public dependent industries (health/energy/etc.), let capitalism keep making widgets, as jobs decrease, institute a basic income with service/work obligation to the populace. There hasn't been free market for the better part of a century. Yes the perpetual machine is always preferable to the machine that needs fuel, but we are well past the age of ignorance that capitalism bears ever reproducing fruits. The greed-machine works well for consumer goods, and may work well in conjunction with social and health technologies--but maybe not at cost we can live with. The best of humanity was never motivated by greed; not the lab technician, not the scientist, not the doctor, not Einstein. Let us dispell the notion that capitalism is some always, ever noble duty; it is greed, and I believe that's a cardinal sin.

Well, the Twins made their offer a week ago, and as you suggest it doesn't quite make sense that if the Twins were serious, so I doubt that's the way it went down. As I suggested earlier, once the Cubs and the Dodgers were able to meet Darvish's general demands, the Twins were likely cut out of the negotiation. Darvish probably had a bunch of five year deals, and I think its more likely he went to the Cubs and the Dodgers and said give me a sixth year and I'll sign. The Twins may not have gotten any opportunity to go higher.

Well, I never saw any reporting up to 125 million, only around 100 million, so if there was reporting to dispute it probably wasn't the ambiguity so much as the speculation/reporting about the dollar amount/years. But you can concede that we're working with reporting and not facts, subject to interpretation, each perhaps a bit guided by our initial assumptions about what happened, right?

So the Twins stating they had made Darvish a priority must be either lip service or else they would have signed him? That's a false choice/dilemma. They can have been serious and lost out; those things aren't mutually exclusive.

This made me laugh. But to be fair, there really aren't many 'facts' in evidence, and when there's ambiguity cognitive biases tend to anchor the arguments.

I think that's all fair. They should have gone big from the outset, or gone home. Though I do appreciate the risk of bidding against themselves--a risk they should have taken. I certainly hope the opt-out clause wasn't the deal breaker; Darvish for 2/50 sounds pretty good to me.

The Brewers were reported to have offered a deal of five years north of 100 million, Rosenthal than contradicts that by stating that it was not as a competitive as reported (so by implication less than what the Twins offered). (And again we're parsing nonfacts here, you can't say with any factual basis that the Twins didn't offer more the Brewers, as there's reporting that suggests otherwise, and no real facts). I mean, if you're not willing to concede you don't know what you don't know, I don't see the point in having a discussion, because you're going to believe what you're going to believe.* *Edit: after seeing your second response, this sentence seems unfair now.

Well, you're trying to parse non-facts. According to Rosenthal, the Brewers offer “was not as competitive as reports indicated.” And that they were primarily driving up the price for the Cubs. And the first sentence of my post concedes your general point, that I wished the Twins had offered more initially. I take your point, but I think you need to be careful by assuming facts that we really don't know (what the Twins offered, what the Brewers offered, what negotiation there was, how much Darvish was willing to negotiate, much less sign with the Twins)--and your construing that ambiguity to fit the narrative that the Twins clearly messed up here. I think there's more nuance to what happened, than the Twins just being wimpy by only offering 5 years and 110 million.

I'm disappointed with the outcome. I wish the Twins had made bigger initial offer, because I think that's the only way things would have turned out different. I see at as Darvish not choosing the Twins than the other way around. There's a lot of assumption that the negotiation was somehow linear from the Twins to Darvish, and thus all the fault of his not signing is upon the Twins. But I think it's far more likely that once Darvish had the Cubs and the Dodgers at years and dollars he could live with, he was negotiating exclusively with those two teams. The Twins were probably on the outside looking in over the past couple of weeks. The Twins may have very well indicated to Darvish that the would match or exceed any other offer, but it's also probably likely that Darvish didn't or wouldn't have given them the chance.

The question should be how much more would Darvish have needed to choose Minnesota over the Cubs. The deal also isn't a straight 6/126 it has incentives up to 150 million, and has an opt-out clause (not sure which year*). *Edit

If not now, then when? If everything shakes out poorly, the alternative is what, another full rebuild? Wait for Royce Lewis and others to get ready and then make FA moves? There's risk inherent no matter when the Twins decide to go for it.

He and others have been saying that throughout the offseason, and have done so not just about Darvish, but FA's willingness to come to Minnesota in general, due to the weather, the market, and other negative platitudes. It sounds like speculation, rather than source-work (i.e. "reason to believe" rather than "insider/person-familiar suggests").

Wolfson has a few tidbits in this podcast. Says the Twins offered either a 4 or 5 year offer to Darvish, unwilling to go 6. One of the most aggressive teams. Napoli likely to receive offer from Twins, who is actively recruiting Darvish. Maintaining regular contact with number of free agents, and with the Tampa Rays about Archer and others, with Kepler perhaps as the center piece.

Others have already touched on a lot of my thoughts, but I'll just add that Democrats haven't been campaigning on anthem protests or black lives matters--people's issues are generally with liberals who do scream loudly about those phenomenon. I think we need to be careful about being so pragmatic that we end up with a lot more Clintons, Gores, and Kerrys as candidates, who fence-sit and try to limit their liability rather than really standing for something. I also think we should be wary of equating pragmatism with making it easier for old, white men to accept a specific candidate or campaign (because that's how the specific examples come across to me). For my part, I want to see authenticity. Sure having a simple message is great, but it needs to be sincere, and it's okay to take a stance on issues that may push some people away (that's really what having a stance is). Why Trump resonated is that he seemed (clearly he is not) authentic, and that appeals to people in non-rationale ways--maybe much in the same way Sanders had more success than was anticipated. I do think our idealism does break down when we actually do the work of coming up with a single message. Even in this forum, we are a distinct group of individuals who really are aligned on the enemy of my enemy is my friend notion than having a discernible shared belief. We're not a bunch of liberals (in fact, there's really only a handful of those). What's a slogan that we can all get behind? "**** the rich" "The rich should pay their fair share" "Jobs aren't coming back" "Free stuff" "Helping people is good" "Let's steal Jack's dollar and give it to Jane"; I don't think generic messages like "Change" and "Hope" are going to work again. There needs to be some substance, and as I've said, authenticity.

When complaining, it's probably best not to make sense.

That's really what the problem has been? And only a single space after a period, what is this a heathen operation?

Sounds like the Brewers are out. (via mlbtr)

Thanks. But doesn't that report that the 7/160 terms were not "correct"? So we don't know what they offered, unless I'm missing something.

Where's the report on this initial Yankee offer of 7/160?

Just stupid politics, and smells of desperation. I don't know what Mueller knows or if there's discoverable evidence, but there's something that Nunes/Trump etc. don't want hitting the light of day.

Why would corporations ever invest in American labor when they can go invest the money elsewhere and get a better return? (Heck as stock holder you might have a claim against the company.) Walmart may have raised its starting pay, but it did so as it closed how many ever Sam's Clubs. I doubt they raised wages because of the tax cuts, but they probably had enough data to realize that enough people prefer shopping at Target etc. because the employees are more helpful because they are getting paid better or have less duties.

Further commentary of the trend: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happened-to-the-democratic-wave/?ex_cid=538twitter For my part, these polls are meaningless, it's all about turnout 10 months from now. The Democrats should lay low for until the summer, enthusiasm fatigue was always a thing. Let the GOP have their victory lap with State of the Union, the tax bill windfall to payroll and a handful of hiring/bonuses. Come summer and fall, like everything, that too will be taken for granted. This month might be a total win for the GOP if not for Nunes, the memo, and the FBI. They'll be plenty of other moments to embolden reasonable people and subdue the crazies between now and November. I just hope the Democrats are organized, because there's perhaps no other time in American history that one party would want to fix the vote.

You can't expect to allocate every dollar on the payroll for "good value." Free agents, esp. the best in their class, are paid at outsized rates because of market demand. The best value comes in the form of pre-arb players, arb. eligible players, and long term contracts signed early on (not always, see: Mauer)--those are either home-grown players or players acquired very early in their careers via trade/waivers/etc. We can't expect to use all of our payroll resources exclusively on in-house talent or we won't be spending close to what we should be allocating in payroll. So payroll expenditures beyond those for in-house players, will necessarily come from the free agent class where the market and not necessarily value dictates price. (Of course you could acquire players via trade, but that cost is quite high too, both paying an established player and paying value in terms of the teams own assets). Given that we have Mauer, etc. coming off the books after this year, and Hughes etc. after next, signing Darvish now is likely to interfere less with any potential free agents in a couple years or in-house costs later. If we don't spend the payroll resources on Darvish, it will simply go unspent, and in another free agent class, we may have even less a chance to recruit such a free agent, we would face the same dilemma of paying them at a rate which is outsized compared to their supposed value, and we'd have a shortened window with which to pay a player such an outsized amount (i.e. before Buxton, Sano etc. need to get paid).