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TheLeviathan

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Everything posted by TheLeviathan

  1. That's not the either/or. Like with most young players, we simply don't know what we have yet. 2017 should be about seeing what we have. In your analogy, I'm the one that wants to see another card. You're the one that wants to go all-in before the flop with 8/2. I'm keeping my hand, nudging out a small bet, and riding the flop to see what I have. Then I make a decision one way or the other. I'm not saying do nothing, but Chief and you and others have all this aggressive language about what should be done and then when pressed to explain that in light of basic common sense about probability, you back your language down considerably. I want them to take a 1 year flyer on a starter or two. I want them to spend some money on a guy like Storen or Feliz. But more than anything I want 2017 to be about figuring out what this young core is, not about picking up a few meaningless wins.
  2. Right now they were good enough for more than 100 losses. That's really your argument? That they're good enough now? Did you watch any of this season of baseball? "Good enough now" is perhaps the least accurate description of this team I can conceive of. If you want to continue your analogy, we're holding 8/2 off suit and you want to go all-in. That's is demonstrably poor-percentage thinking. Look, you want to throw some hail mary bets out in hopes of turning them into a little bit of luck for a hand much later? Sure, I'm in on that. Sign a flyer or two and hope you can deal them in July. But that's the goal and nothing more. It's probably a good goal too - identify some buy low talents and sell them high for the future. Same with selling on Dozier and Santana. Sell now in hopes of turning the profits to your advantage later. But that means you knowingly take some beats now for the payoff later. Know what you have and know how to play it. Going all-in with 8/2 is just bad management of probability.
  3. If you want to trade for pitching this offseason, relative to most offseasons or even the deadline, you will have to flush extra assets to obtain the same piece. Pitching will be at a ridiculous premium. So your suggetion to trade young players for it is tantamount to flushing assets. To continue the perhaps tortured analogy: The ship I'm setting sail on plans to win a World Series. You appear eager to leave port no matter what condition the ship is in, what the weather looks like, or how bad the patches are. I'm planning to make my destination by building a ship that won't sink halfway because I was so deluded about my chances that I rushed the trip before I had a ship capable of making it. We're better off letting the storms die down and work on our ship before we set sail. Your patched up ship might make it a few extra miles than the one we sank last year....but it's still going to sink. I don't plan to wait forever, but I damn sure won't rush into the trip when I know I'm going to sink.
  4. Interesting can mean a lot of things, Also, recent polls have shown other Republican potentials have a shot at beating her. And, as always, a non-presidential cycle is always dangerous for any Dem.
  5. Chief, I'll never understand your philosophy that setting sail with a ship full of cheap plugs is a better strategy than...I don't know...being patient and building a boat that may actually make the trip. You're flushing assets in a bad market in the name of principle, not good asset management or planning. I hope on all that is holy in baseball, that Falvey totally disagrees with you.
  6. I get the concern that players don't get to choose where they play, at the same time I'm more concerned with the health of the game overall. Without the draft forcing some degree of equal distribution of talent, you'll see competitive balance erode over time. Making things about money pools puts competitive balance in way too much jeopardy for my liking. And when that crumbles, it won't matter how much freedom the players have when the league begins to dissolve in relevance.
  7. I like that his approach seems flexible and tailored to the player rather than a hard line organizational stance.
  8. Brett Anderson and Generic FA guy do nothing but add to your mountain of question marks. They don't solve that problem even remotely. I'm ok with signing a couple guys, but I'm not fooling myself about who they are.
  9. That could be interesting.
  10. To me the explanation is simple. Who would you rather throw your lot in with? The group that doesn't care but at least doesn't openly hate you or the group that openly hates and despises you and runs on platforms that will directly impact your life for the worse (but might rarely make it better)? The left mocks, ridicules, and ignores an entire class of people for various reason. And those people mock, ridicule, and ignore the plights of other entire classes of people for various reasons. Is it really any wonder we have such a disconnect?
  11. This post is spot on. Let me throw it to those of you dead set on the Twins adding starting pitching. How and who? This offseason market is going to be a sellers market. Why, given our current status, would we jump in as a buyer when we have assets to sell?
  12. It is true. Now many people stay or move to those towns too. There still have to be schools and hospitals and all of that. The problem is that those infrastructures are slowly crumbling as communities lose jobs and spending power wanes. I have bounced around a lot, including moving not far from where I grew up for a few years and it was really interesting to see my Chicago-native wife try to adjust to the wide open rural spaces. The disconnect is real. And it's a real problem.
  13. I think it's largely understood. There are some that feel bitter about family farms ending because their sons don't stay. But, in my experience, I never felt like the bitterness was towards urban/city life pulling kids away. It was just expected and understood by the nature of opportunities. Especially since many rural people do want their kids to live a better life than them.
  14. Oh absolutely. The right exploits these people and rural Americans don't understand urban life. It definitely goes both ways. There should be great care given by both sides to bridge those gaps.
  15. That article pretty much nails it. I come from a small town like the ones referenced there and the author pretty much nails it. Especially those first few points. I agree with liberals on a number of issues, I'm not religious, I don't revere Donald Trump, but where I completely sympathize is my impression of liberals as snooty urban no-nothings who have no concept of what it's like to work hard and be self reliant in a rural environment. And this election has brought out the worst of that in the left. Some self-recognition of that is going to be vital for preventing the next Trump and healing some of the divide.
  16. With a FA class this putrid, the trade market is going to be ridiculous for any pitcher on the market. Buying in this market is going to be the definition of poor planning and buying high. If we're one pitcher away? Ok, maybe. We're like 6 pitchers away. We're not good enough to flush that kind of value.
  17. The best reason for not trying too hard on the rotation is that the market is just so terrible there isn't any reasonable way to do so. So trade assets at their peak, patch the ship, and hope through trades in the next calendar year or so you can build a functional to even good 2018 rotation. Forcing things will only make it worse in the long run.
  18. I coach high school football and I love it. But the parents are awful. And I calculated my pay as working out to about $2.50 an hour. So...I thank my wife every day for allowing me to waste so much time investing in kids for rewards that don't add up.
  19. I'm a teacher, so I have an elite medical plan. I got hosed by the way the ACA upped expenses on those sorts of plans. It was also one of the few financial perks and it's been effectively neutralized. Which really sucks.
  20. Oh absolutely, my father (an actual small family farmer) and I have had the same conversations. The ACA was great for the impoverished and most in need. But for many in the middle class it's been a horrible burden. In the last five years my coverage has been slashed and my expenses increased by about 4 times what it was. I don't want it repealed, but I need the left to recognize it's far from a good thing at this point. It was a hard fought step in the right direction, but it's squeezing a lot of us. And the left has long overlooked agriculture and rural economics, it's part of why they don't have their vote. Liberals are quite adept at coming off as dismissive and snooty when it comes to blue collar, working labor. (The kind that doesn't have some overpriced corporation calling itself a union that is)
  21. No one wants to coach or ref anything these days. And for good reason. I'd look there first if I were trying to explain it.
  22. You can do both. We have money to use and we need more talent. Investing money and innings into a guy that wants to prove he can close is a low risk, high reward proposition. You invest those innings and dollars, reap the rewards in July, and then give the last two months of the season to the young guy who has pitched the best so far in the season as the closer. Good rebuilding teams look for ways to use open roles they have to create more value than they invest.
  23. This, so much of the extra time is forced, not natural.
  24. That's just it, Dems don't care about the largely rural parts of America because they have given up on them as voters. That's why the largely Dem-driven recovery has been so urban focused. Obamacare also hit these folks the hardest. And the right keeps selling the bogus idea that 1% are going to start creating jobs in po-dunk rural towns. This problem isn't going away.
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